Jack Blog
February 8th, 2011 By Jack Morton
In a recent article by 24/7 Wall Street, the 15 Most Hated American Companies of 2010 were reviewed.
The criteria used was interesting. They examined each company based on six criteria, validated by a wide array of sources.
- Employee opinions
- Total return to shareholders
- Consumer opinions
- Brand valuation
- Press coverage
- Taxpayer, congress and administration views
The list includes:
- American Airlines
- Nokia
- Toyota
- Best Buy
- Charter Communications
- Citigroup
- AT&T
- Bank of America
- Dell
- Dish Network
- Johnson & Johnson
- McDonalds
- United Airlines
- British Petroleum
- DirecTV
While some of those listed may seem obvious, others may be less clear. Sure, association with industries like airlines and financial services can easily impact some of these brands. However, the recurring theme across all companies seems to be largely brand experience centric.
What you do in creating, fulfilling and living up to your brand promise matters. Whether its ensuring billing practices are built with customer satisfaction in mind, or that your products perform as expected, customer experience before, during and after the sale matters.
How is your store laid out? How comfortable is it for users to navigate your web page? How do you treat people when they call customer service? How are your employees trained to address prospects and customers at every point in the relationship? How do you ensure product quality exceeds expectations? Are you ethical in all your business practices? By adopting an audience-centric approach to everything you do and aligning your organization to perform against your brand promise, you’ll be well on your way to avoiding making this list. How’s your brand doing?