FLETCHER WEIR
BRAND EXPERIENCE
WHEN THE EXPERIENCE DOESN'T MATCH THE PROMISE
The brand says one thing.
The experience says another.
A brand promise doesn't live in a presentation.
It lives in what happens when someone calls. Visits. Buys. Applies. Gets admitted. Receives care. Makes a donation. Has a problem. Talks to an employee.
And sometimes the organization that people actually experience bears surprisingly little resemblance to the one the brand promises.
That's when a communications problem becomes an experience problem.
IT MIGHT LOOK LIKE
Customers like the idea of the brand more than the reality of dealing with it.
Employees understand the brand, but don't know what it asks them to do differently in delivering the customer experience.
Different parts of the organization unknowingly deliver very different customer experiences.
Research says one thing matters to customers, while operations are optimized around something else.
A new brand promise has been launched, but very little has changed underneath it.
Or the organization keeps trying to fix an experience problem with communications.
YOU CAN’T COMMUNICATE YOUR WAY OUT OF A BAD EXPERIENCE
That's when you realize it wasn't a communications problem in the first place.
Sometimes the instinct is to try to explain the promise more clearly, but if people aren't experiencing it, saying it louder won't help.
Equally, experience strategy can become an enormous, seemingly unending exercise in journey maps, processes and touch-points without ever answering a simpler question:
What should actually feel different about dealing with this organization?
That's where we start.
WHAT WE LOOK AT
We look at what the brand promises , while uncovering what people actually experience.
What customers, patients, donors or other audiences value most.
Where the moments that disproportionately shape their perceptions occur.
What employees believe they're expected to deliver.
Where systems, processes or organizational culture get in the way.
And which gaps matter enough to fix.
Then we work out where changing the experience would make the biggest difference.
WHAT THAT CAN LEAD TO
It might mean a clearer customer or brand experience strategy.
It could mean defining experience principles, identifying priority moments, aligning employee and customer experience, or translating an abstract brand promise into behaviours employees can actually deliver.
Sometimes the answer sits with communications. Sometimes with operations.
But usually, it crosses a few boundaries.
THE POINT
The brand isn't just what you say about the organization.
It is what people experience when they deal with you.
CONTACT
Is the experience you're delivering the one you intended?
Let's talk.
Customer experience · Patient experience · Donor experience · Brand experience · Employee experience · Cultural Strategy · Organizational alignment