Tip #297: 7 Tips About Your Corporate Authenticity

According to the 2010 Edelman Trust Barometer (the PR firm's annual survey on trust and credibility), transparency now affects a company's reputation more than the quality of their products or services. Just look at the Deepwater Horizon oil spill and what the lack of transparency has done to BP.

Demand For Corporate Authenticity Is At An All-Time High.

When a client or prospect interacts with your company they are also experiencing your company. Every press release, every phone call, every e-mail, every face-to-face meeting contributes to a prospect's total experience. The less positive those experiences are, the less likely a client or prospect is to engage your business any further. To help your business operate more transparently, we came up with seven tips every leader should know.

7 Tips About Corporate Authenticity Every Business Leader Should Know:

1. Every Client And Prospect Adds Up Their Experience With Your Business - Clients and prospects experience your business from the very first e-mail or phone call they receive to the moment they walk through your door. Every sound, every sight, every smell shapes their opinions of your business' operation. Once every member of your staff understands this, you will be well ahead of your competition.

2. Experiences Can Be Designed For Someone - Do not confuse "designing" an experience with fabricating one. Knowing who your prospects are well enough to tailor an experience to suit their needs, wants and tastes will only strengthen their interest in your business. Look at what Disney does at its parks around the world.

3. A "Designed" Experience Does Not Mean Performed - Prospects do not want their experience with your company to feel like a performance. If a company delivers the illusion of reality how is it possibly authentic? It is important for leaders to understand the difference between designing an experience (tailoring it to suit the tastes of its clients and prospects) and fabricating one. People are smarter than ever and can quickly see through a corporate veil.

4. Consider Your Employees' Experience Too - Your employees deserve the same experience as your clients and prospects. Keep that in mind when you look at the environment people work in, how they are trained, your corporate culture and their balance with family life.

5. Avoid Experience Gaps At All Costs - In the advertising world, experience gaps are sometimes referred to as "brand gaps" - when the message and the experience do not align. Imagine staying at a 5-star hotel only to discover there is no running water. That is a huge disconnect, - one that compromises what the hotel promises and what they actually deliver. Put simply, talk is cheap. If you say you'll deliver, then deliver.

6. A Bad Experience CAN Be Fixed - Let's face it, businesses are run by people and people are not perfect. Mistakes are bound to happen. That does not mean a business should not strive for perfection. In the meanwhile, when a mistake does happen, be sure to react immediately and do everything in your power to remedy the mistake.

7. No One Has An "Indifferent" Experience - If a client engages your business once but does not return, chances are something went wrong. Learning what went wrong is critical in helping your business become more authentic. So instead of dismissing clients that do not return, survey them about their experience in an effort to improve your operation.

Summary: Recent events and studies have proven the need for corporate authenticity (honesty and transparency) is absolutely essential. To achieve this, businesses leaders need to ensure their operation is welcoming to clients and prospects. For example, avoid rigid scripts when making phone calls and make sure your salespeople talk to prospects like real people, not actors reciting lines in a play. The more you know about your business, the easier you can design an experience that will resonate with new opportunities.