| Image Management is simply what we call watching over your image. And it is incredibly important, particularly in service based industries (which most of us are in). Services are a strange breed of animal in that, unlike products, services are purchased almost sight unseen and on blind faith. And many times with services, people value consistency a lot more than they do excellence. They want the same experience every time they interact with a vendor. They want your employees to look nice, but also, they want them to look very much the same. Even if they wear suits (think about IBM and the blue suit and white shirt) we want them to look similar. It brings us comfort.
Consider the services that you use. Think about it. Do you know how good your pediatrician is? Good compared to whom? Good by what standard? Do you know if they graduated in the top half of their class? We don't have a clue. So if we are not making those decisions based on credentials or other evidence, how to people choose a service provider?
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Well, let me tell you. It has more to do with the polish of your shoes than it does in your ability to provide the service. When people cannot test drive something or put their hands on the finished product (like they can a car) they rely on strange methods for determining whether or not a service provider is competent. Strange clues like:
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They also decide whether or not to stay with a service provider using some strange methods. Probably above them all: Consistency of Experience . . . notice I did not excellence . . . I said consistency.
As a practical matter, people like to experience the SAME thing each time they interact with us or one of our employees. We want workers to look the same (even if they are wearing suits) and present the same each and every time. People don't like change. Even above being excellent sometimes, people will take a service that is "pretty good" most of the time first and stay with them longer.
One way you can use this in your favor is to get all of your people wearing the same clothes. Nice clothes. With your company name and logo embroidered on the shirt. Even the nicest dress shirt can look impressive embroidered. And, for service employees, it provides a consistent experience for your customers to see everyone dressed the same. And again, people will take pretty good if it is consistent over excellence every now and then. |
