In Wally Olins' On Brand, the author devotes an entire chapter to service brands. There he introduces the concept of 'journey', or rather different types of journeys, that anyone who comes in touch with the brand goes through.
He returns to the topic of services when he provides guidelines on how to create and sustain a brand (chapter 9). When talking about behaviour, one of brand's four senses, and service brands, Olins argues that 'every kind of service that we buy is behaviourally driven or influenced..... Airlines are also a classic example of behaviourally driven brands. We almost always judge an airline on the basis of the service we receive; not how long it took to get from Budapest to Amsterdam but was the experience was like from the moment we arrive at the airport till the time when we pick up our luggage" (p.182). In other words, it is the journey one takes through the brand that defines their experience not the product itself.
Absolutely spot on. However, the journey begins well before deciding to engage with a brand. Arriving at the airport is certainly not the beginning of the customer journey. By the time you get to the airport you have already bought into the brand. The journey starts well before that: at the point when you decide to take a holiday, and you have to choose not only which airline to fly with but also whether to fly at all.
When designing that experience, the service provider needs to look at every touchpoint and see how they (the brand, if you wish) talk to the potential customer.
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