In a business setting, consistency means keeping promises, continually producing high-quality products, and going above and beyond to keep customers happy every day. Consistency should truly be built into your building material company’s business model, values, and most importantly your brand.
The main reason it’s so important to maintain a consistent brand is because it’s synonymous with your reputation. It’s how your prospects, customers, competitors, and anyone who encounters your company sees you. Once trust is broken, through a product recall or a long delay in responding to a customer service call, it’s very challenging to gain it back.
However, if you have always shown consistency in your brand one slip up may be overlooked. Building a consistent brand shows the authenticity and integrity of your company while helping to keep a positive image of your products.
Here are a few more reasons why consistency is so important, especially in the building materials industry.
Consistency Builds Trust And Proves Credibility
If an architect had heard great things about your building products and read awesome reviews, they may be more inclined to try your product if the need arose to switch brands. If the time came and they purchased your materials, only to later find out there was a defect you have lost not only that customer but also other potential customers.
Now, they will tell other architects and people they encounter about their poor experience with your brand and the ripple effect will deplete your credibility. In this specific example, the architect had a good experience with your brand initially which is why they chose you. But after having a negative experience with the quality of your product their perception of your brand changed.
The goal is to avoid these types of situations. Aside from referrals and good reviews, your website, customer service, and your actual product speak loudly about your brand. If you take the time to educate prospects and bring consistency across the board so all aspects of your business relate to each other you will gain trust, credibility, and more customers.
Just by showing up and creating repeatable processes, prospects and customers will begin to see you as reliable and seek out your brand more often.
Lack Of Consistency Can Be A Reflection On The Quality Of Your Products
Even if you have the most spectacular product in the world without true consistency it can be hard to make sales. It’s not about convincing prospects that you have a great product, it’s about showing them. If your brand is constantly creating new, valuable content and responding to customer service calls promptly after receiving them your product will sell itself.
According to Forbes, “Branding is the key to differentiating yourself from the competition, but if you don’t build your brand promise around reality or consistently live up to it, your branding efforts are pointless. Brands are built through the consistent delivery of the brand promise through all stakeholder touch points.”
Your brand promise as a building materials manufacturer is to deliver top quality products that solve your target’s problems. Your target can be architects, distributors, designers, builders, etc. Regardless of the target, if you aren’t keeping that promise you are doing an injustice to the customer, your business, and the industry.
You Can Change The Way Customers And Prospects Perceive You With Consistency
If the only thing your brand is known for is consistently failing at dependability, quality, and good customer service, you have the power to shift this perception. While it is very difficult, it’s not impossible to use consistency as the gateway to a better version of your brand. In instances like the one just described it would make the most sense to rebrand.
You can remake your brand from the bottom up including: look, word associations, and most importantly peoples’ perceptions of your company. The motivating factor behind the rebrand could be to now deliver a consistent message of trust, quality, and excellent customer service. This would give your company the opportunity to make a new name for itself and then go back and ask customers who have used your materials in the past to give you another try.
It’s never too late to start over, make changes, and work toward a better reputation. Hopefully, you will not reach the point of having to rebuild, but rather continue to build and maintain a steady brand that delivers on its promises during each interaction with your customers and prospects.
