Creating a Strong Brand Identity Through Your Cloud Communication System

Branding expands beyond just your business’s visual identity like logos, packaging, and color palette. Your brand encapsulates the entire essence of your company. It is not only the physical features that contribute to your identity, but also the feeling or experience your brand invokes. All your touchpoints should reflect your brand’s persona. So naturally, this should include your cloud communication system.

Building your Brand Voice

When planning your branding strategies, your cloud phone system might not immediately come to mind as something to include. However, a customer’s first impression or interaction with your business may be through a phone call.

Most cloud-based phone systems provide access to a selection of communication features. These features make it easy to customize your business phone network and establish your brand’s voice. You can use them to make a great first impression on prospects and exceed your returning customers’ expectations.

In this article, we’ll dive into exactly how to use your cloud phone system to develop a strong brand identity. But first, let’s start with the basics of branding.

Why is Establishing a Brand Identity Important?

Brand identity contributes to people’s perception of your business. Strong branding helps you establish your company’s personality and help it stay in your audience’s minds longer. And with the marketplace cluttered with competition, it’s essential to create a memorable and consistent business image.

Now, let’s take a look at the importance and benefits of developing a strong brand identity:

• Distinguish yourself from your competitors
• Improve brand recognition among your target market
• Generate new customers and delight existing ones
• Stay in consumers’ minds, even if they aren’t ready to make a purchase
• Build trust between business and target audience
• Establish your company as an authoritative and credible organization
• Maximize customer loyalty and repeat customers
• Increase customer lifetime value (CLV)
• Boost your sales and overall revenue

As you can see, a strong brand identity is a massive benefit to your business. Investing time and energy into your brand offers substantial results and helps your business grow.

Brand Identity Dos and Don’ts

There are many components that go into developing a strong business identity. And this can act as the foundation of how you maintain brand consistency across different channels. If you’re not sure you can do the work yourself, there are branding companies you can reach out to for these services. If you’re ready to go it alone, here’s a list of the top branding dos and don’ts:

Do

• Research Your Target Audience – Start by researching your target market’s pain points, behaviors, and preferences. With this information, you can align your products and services with your audience’s wants and needs.

• Map Out Your Mission Statement –  Determining your goals and overall vision allows you to understand your business’ purpose. Then, you can craft a clear and compelling mission statement that draws customers in.

• Lean into Your Uniqueness – Focus on what sets your business apart and what unique value you offer customers. An original and memorable brand attracts people to your company and differentiates you from competitors.

• Consistency is Everything – From your social media accounts to your customer service team, staying consistent across all your touchpoints is vital to a successful business image. Wherever your customers or prospects interact with your brand, they should have a consistent experience.

Don’t

• Copy Competitors – Replicating your competitor’s strategies doesn’t highlight your business’ unique goals and values. It could make it harder for customers to find and differentiate your business from the crowd. Instead, use competitors as reference points to see what strategies succeed or fail in your industry. But, always put your own spin on things.

• Jump on Every Trend – Although viral trends may help increase awareness, not every trend aligns with your brand’s personality and values. So, be selective of the trends you choose to embrace.

• Produce Vague Messaging – Any brand messaging should be straightforward. Vague messaging leaves room for questions and confuses your audience – making it ineffective.
• Maintain the Same Brand Identity and Strategies – If your brand identity is strong, it doesn’t mean you should never rebrand or modify your strategies. Instead, routinely analyze your brand and adjust it to meet your market’s evolving needs.

How to Create a Strong Brand Identity through a Cloud Communication System

Although business communication networks are often overlooked in branding plans, it is just as important as your social media accounts or website. With that being said, let’s dive into how to create a strong brand identity through your cloud phone system.

Use Customized Messaging to Strengthen Brand Voice

Whether it’s your greeting, voicemail, or prompts, every message (quite literally) reflects your brand’s voice. So, it’s essential to customize your system’s messaging to fit your brand’s personality.

Additionally, recorded greetings are the first interaction and impression callers have of your business. As callers move through your phone system, they’ll hear several menu options, prompts, and perhaps even on-hold messaging – adding to their perception of your brand.

Here are 4 tips to keep in mind when creating your own customized messaging.

1. Choose your words carefully – It’s important to keep word choice (vocabulary, phrasing, and style) straightforward when addressing your audience. Avoid overcomplicating messaging with wordy, run-on sentences or complex jargon when possible. This way, your message is easily digestible and engaging.
2. Review tone of voice – Consider not only the tone of your script, but also how the speaker articulates it. The way you express messages says a lot about your brand. Regardless of your target audience, no one wants to be talked to condescendingly. When determining your brand’s tone of voice, ask yourself – What feeling or mood do you want the brand to convey? Is it more happy-go-lucky or calm and composed? Align both your spoken and written messages with the overall tone of your business.
3. Opt for a human voice – Rather than using an automated or robotic voice, use human audio. A human voice breathes life into your messages and keeps your callers engaged. Ask your team members to lend their voices to better represent your brand.
4. Pay attention to audio quality – Bad audio quality can cause your recorded greetings, voicemails, and menu prompts to be muddled and misunderstood. If you’re struggling with bad audio quality, try recording in a quiet room with lots of fabric – to absorb ambient noise.

Optimize Your IVR System

A cloud Interactive Voice Response (IVR) assists your callers and navigates them efficiently through your cloud phone system. It is an automated voice service that eliminates long wait times by quickly addressing the caller’s needs. As a result, your cloud IVR helps your teams provide excellent customer service, making new and existing visitors feel valued.

IVRs also establish your brand as professional and trustworthy – since many well-known corporations use advanced IVRs themselves. That’s why it’s important to optimize your IVR so your callers get the best experience every time.

Your IVR system should reflect your brand’s identity and streamline the caller’s experience. This, of course, begins with customized greetings and menu prompts, as discussed above. But, there are more ways to optimize your system for the best caller experience.

Here’s how:

• Keep menu options short and easy to navigate
• Always offer a “speak to a live agent” option
• Customize your call flows to meet your customer’s specific pain points or top concerns
• Depending on your customer base, consider providing multilingual options
• Test and modify your IVR as necessary

Choose the Right Hold Music

Even though an IVR with a good setup reduces wait times, you may still have to put callers on hold from time to time. While they are on hold, play music or customized messages to help pass the time for callers. Both help lower your dropped call rates and let the caller know they are still being helped.

If you choose to go with on-hold music, it’s important to select your music carefully. It may seem like a minor detail in the grand scheme of things, but it contributes to your brand’s overall identity and feel.

When selecting your music, feel free to get creative! It doesn’t have to be overused elevator music. But, you should always consider your target audience’s demographics and preferences. Additionally, pay attention to both the quality of the music’s audio and the different types of music available (royalty-free, for purchase, etc.).

Empower Employees to Represent your Brand

According to a recent study, the credibility of CEOs and other leadership positions is at an all-time low. Nevertheless, one thing has always been true – your employees represent your brand.

Your teams and employees are a connection between your business and customers. They humanize your business and build trust among your customer base. So, you should train and empower them to express the company spirit. But, how does one get this process started?

Here are some suggestions:

• Offer onboarding, training, and continuous guidance as they grow with your business
• Educate team members on your brand’s identity and target audience
• Share company goals and mission statements
• Empower employees to communicate with customers using their voice
• Motivate team members to take initiative and make decisions
• Ask for feedback, suggestions, and ideas
• Encourage team members to engage with other professionals
• Avoid implementing strict rules, procedures, or required scripts

Read more on employee performance management

Measuring Success and Identifying Room for Improvement

Establishing a strong brand identity doesn’t happen overnight. It takes time to build a credible and memorable brand. To identify what strategies are working and what might need modification, regularly analyze your brand’s progress.

To analyze the success of your cloud phone system’s branding, consider using the following:

• Surveys and Feedback – Surveys and feedback from customers and your team members will help you identify areas for improvement and what’s working well.

• Call Recording –  Use call recordings for training purposes and quality assurance. This tool can help you determine areas where employees need more guidance or see what pain points are regularly addressed during phone calls. Then, you adjust your curriculum and service accordingly.

• Call Detail Records – Analyze call data to understand your caller’s behavior and meet their evolving needs. Additionally, you can track marketing campaigns and employee use. This way, you can enhance caller experience further through your phone system.

Make Your Touchpoints Work For You

Make all your touchpoints, including your cloud phone system, work toward your company image. If all your business platforms, tools, and employees come together to create your brand’s identity – you’ll undoubtedly end up with a strong one. And soon, you’ll see an uptick in your business’ revenue, customer loyalty, and overall success.