Managing Your Brand Equity thru Stakeholder Relationships

Managing your brand equity is all about managing your stakeholder relationships. For the purpose of defining these terms, your brand is the name of your FBO and your equity is not only what you have invested in building infrastructure, it is also the investment in developing the kind of image that you want your brand to project.

Stakeholders are primarily your customers, employees, vendors and suppliers. These are the groups that can form an opinion of your FBO and can send or disseminate messages about your brand, whether positive or negative. That’s why managing these stakeholder relationships are critical to your success.

A brand’s image is mostly based on how a stakeholder feels about a company. Thus, the emotional sway. Over time, it can define your reputation.  

So how important is it to properly manage your brand equity? Research indicates that emotion about a brand plays a big role for a customer in choosing a service provider. Aircraft owners and operators traditionally do business with brands that project a strong, positive image. If a brand does not project trust and confidence, there is little chance of building long-term (and profitable) customer relationships.

Building trust and confidence with your customers is everyone’s responsibility. Whether the first contact with your FBO is made over the phone, through an email and text, or in person on the ramp, every customer interface should be carefully choreographed and practiced to the point where it becomes organic.

Therefore, it is important to create an internal culture where every member of the team exudes confidence and trust. Aircraft owners and operators have a sixth sense when it comes to a ‘feel’ they get from just one service of their aircraft. Is the service team precise yet friendly, cold or indifferent, or somewhere in between?

Confidence is gained from doing a task better each time it is performed. It becomes entrenched when recognition is given for doing a good job. Customer trust is gained when the perceived level of confidence is high and repeated over a period of time.

Please leave any comments you have about this blog post below. If you have any questions, please give us a call or send us an email: jenticknap@bellsouth.net, 404-867-5518; ronjacksongroup@gmail.com, 972-979-6566.

ABOUT THE BLOGGERS: John Enticknap has more than 35 years of aviation fueling and FBO services industry experience and is an IS-BAH Accredited auditor. Ron Jackson is co-founder of Aviation Business Strategies Group and president of The Jackson Group, a PR agency specializing in FBO marketing and customer service training. Visit the biography page or absggroup.com for more background.

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