Keep your brand strong without wasting valuable management time

A strong brand image is the key to the success for any company – which makes maintaining its consistency across widespread outlets absolutely vital.

However, according the leading business intelligence and mystery shopping company, Retail Active, too many senior managers are spending valuable time monitoring brand compliance at the expense of developing other aspects of the business.

Brand Auditing is an established technique, giving senior management the ability to monitor the way in which the brand is being represented throughout the organisation.

It puts the detailed process of brand management in the hands of professionals who will pick up and report back on non-compliance or erosion of standards in a totally transparent way.

It is a method of checking operational compliance of brand facilities, standards, procedures and policies, offering a failsafe way to put things right – once they have been identified.

The business intelligence and mystery shopping company, Retail Active, is one of the UK’s leading practitioners of brand auditing, with a vast experience of helping to maintain brand consistency for a wide variety of both globally recognised and local brands. They claim to help save thousands of hours of wasted management time by providing a brand audit solution that not only identifies non compliance but more importantly becomes the catalyst to rectifying poor performance.

Managing director, Julian Chamberlain says: “It is the perfect solution for retailers with multiple outlets, where consistency is essential.

“Our research in the industry has revealed that hundreds of hours of valuable management time is being wasted monitoring brand consistency, when there is a perfectly viable alternative, which would save money and free up managers.

“The push for brand auditing came from the clients themselves. They wanted to ensure a consistent operational standard across multi-unit operations, to deliver flawless execution of the brand.

“Brand auditing creates a regular, structured process to identify compliance and non-compliance of brand essentials.”

This involves visiting entire chains in the space of only a few weeks to give a “State of the Nation” report on the execution of the brand.

It saves hours of wasted management time, resources and overheads and produces evidenced web-based data. Crucially the system is designed to help resolve issues in simple cost effective ways.

In addition the brand auditors provide detailed and structured feedback to managers, giving assistance and expert advice, where necessary.

The Retail Active system is so sophisticated that it not only recognises poor brand delivery, it acts as the core solution to improve performance, saving hundreds of hours of wasted management time. The system tracks accountability and places automated orders, delivering training and acting as the central communications point for brand equity measurement.

Julian Chamberlain says: “It is an excellent method of protecting capital investments, correcting any non-approved practices and maintaining the fabric of the business.

Brand auditing involves a regular monthly or quarterly structured audit operation – which is normally unannounced and checks compliance against a pre determined and agreed criteria. Each non-compliance is fully recorded and backed up with evidence. It is recorded on a 24/7 reporting system – providing instant visibility of the brand delivery and performance. This approach if frequently used in conjunction with a mystery shopping programme.

Julian Chamberlain says: “Each programme is developed on a bespoke basis, to meet clients specific requirements – but the underlying process remains the same.

“The most common pitfall is to use the brand audit process to penalise unit managers."

“It should really be used in a more strategic way to uplift the performance of the brand, share information on best practice and reward great performance”.

Retail Active’s top five benefits of a Brand Audit programme are:

1. Management and staff quickly develop the culture of caring for the facilities and brand as if it were their own
2. Every programme is unique to the client and rapidly eliminates brand inconsistency
3. Provides a visual check of the brand 24.7, underpinned with complete management accountability
4. Nothing is left to chance, there is no room to ignore the programme – it measures compliance, recommends solutions and tracks accountability through to resolution
5. The brand wins, Customers win