Top CRM executive Braune founds customer experience consultancy

by Daniel Farey-Jones, Brand Republic 26-Sep-05, 07:00

LONDON – A newly launched customer experience consultancy, Brandspeak, has signed two major blue-chip clients and is negotiating with marketing services groups about possible alliances.

Brandspeak has been launched by Jeremy Braune, who until recently was head of customer experience at CRM and IT management consultancy Detica and previously head of customer experience at Brann.

Braune is soon to announce the appointments of colleagues with experience in research, branding, CRM and product development. They are currently working out notice periods.

He described Brandspeak's approach as a fix for the CRM industry's concentration on the operational aspects of customer retention and acquisition, which is prone to favour business needs at the expense of patchy customer experience, causing defections.

"The criteria by which consumers evaluate brands has changed fundamentally. Five years ago, the brand promise was enough, but now the consumer is saying 'If the delivery is not good enough then I'm off to the competition'," he said.

Brandspeak will examine a company's retention and acquisition processes from both the company and its customers' points of view, using qualitative research, and then draw up an improved system monitored by performance metrics.

It is negotiating working relationships with above- and below-the-line agencies, which Braune said "speak the same language to a degree".

"They should and are becoming increasingly involved in customer experience because they are involved in articulating the brand promise, which can be undermined by poor delivery," he said.

Braune's previous clients have included Vodafone, HSBC, Orange, NatWest, Fiat and Guinness.

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