Corporate image — as defined by those tasked with developing or measuring it — is the sum of how your company is perceived by the public. There are dozens of factors that go into forming an image — from signage to the way people answer the phone — and all of them are critical in the task of putting one's best foot forward.

Jane Albert, director of marketing for Veritech Corp. in East Longmeadow, was talking about corporate image and the myriad ways it can be projected when the phone in her office rang.

It was the receptionist at Veritech, wanting the correct spelling of a last name she would soon post on a board welcoming guests to the company.

“There's a good example right there,” Albert said after providing the needed information. “What would it say to this gentleman about our company if we had his name spelled wrong?”

Only a minute or two after resuming the conversation she paused, picked up the phone, buzzed the receptionist, and asked that she make sure there was a spot in the small front parking lot for the aforementioned guest.

“There's another example,” she said. “We'll ask employees to move their cars across the street and make room for guests, because that's better than having the customer park over there. What message is a company sending when the spot closest to the door is reserved for the president, and not for customers?”

The two examples raised are, by themselves, two of the smaller, but no less important, ways that image is projected, said Albert, who has been involved in marketing and corporate image work for many years, at Veritech, Western New England College, and her own company, Albert Associates.

Like people and cities, she said, companies have images. And just as people don't get a second chance to make a first impression, companies don't either (see related story, page 24). That's why, whenever possible, businesses must consistently project that which they want to project.

“Perception is reality,” said Larry McNaughton, managing director of Stamford, Conn.-based Corporate Branding, LLC which develops branding strategies for clients that include MasterCard, Lucent Technologies, NASCAR, Pitney Bowes, and others. And at a time when product quality is almost a given, perception of one's company takes on even greater meaning.

McNaughton said image is projected in virtually every aspect of a company — from the way the phones are answered to the cleanliness of a company's trucks; from the sign on the building to the letterhead; from advertisements and billboards (see related story, page 19), to a company's Web site.

The total package can have a very big impact on how well a company does with the bottom line, said McNaughton, who said a growing number of companies are coming to the realization that their brand is an asset, one that needs to be cultivated and then protected.

“Your brand is more than a name, and branding is much more than advertising,” he told BusinessWest. “Your brand is the sum of the experiences that a corporate entity or product might present.”

BusinessWest takes a detailed look this month at the complex subject of image, how it's projected, and how companies can build the image they want.

In Good Company

Atlantic Fasteners in West Springfield has developed a reputation for accuracy and dependability in its deliveries. And it's also made a name for itself with something else — Tootsie Pops.

The company puts at least one in every box it ships, said Tony Peterson, a partner and vice president of marketing for Atlantic. The company goes through about 3,000 to 3,500 of them a month. The tactic does two things for Atlantic, he explained: first the candy helps ensure that the box will be opened upon arrival, for the most part — many of the packages are small and therefore easy to lose on a crowded loading dock — and second, it spreads a measure of good will among customers.

That's because Atlantic doesn't just put a Tootsie Pop in a box, it goes to great lengths to make sure that the flavor is the favorite of the intended recipient. The company regularly gets notes back requesting specific flavors, said Peterson, noting that the data is carefully collected and recorded. “After all, if you're going to do something, you should do it right — customers notice things like that.”

Indeed, they do, and what customers notice is a very big component of what constitutes a company's image, said Albert, who told BusinessWest that customers, and the public at large, are left with impressions on everything from how a salesperson dresses to how the company cares for the lawn in front of its headquarters. Meanwhile, employees have perceptions of the companies they work for, she stressed, and because these people meet the public on and off the job, they must have a positive image of their employer as well.

There are some aspects of image that cross all businesses and industry groups, she said, noting that every entity — from law firms to auto body shops — wants to portray professionalism, dependability, and quality of work.

That said, companies in different sectors want to portray different tangibles and intangibles, image consultants agree. Car dealers need to project honesty, while hospitals must convey compassion. Manufacturers must stress accuracy in their components, while news organizations must convey accuracy in their stories.

Projecting the right image begins with determining which image one needs to send. While some auto body shops pride themselves on clean uniforms and clean garages, Albert said, most people don't care what the mechanic looks like as long as he or she can fix their car right the first time.

In the service industry, a company's reputation for responsiveness to customers is everything, said Robert Carnavale, president of Palmer Goodell Insurance, which has worked diligently to continually improve any and all aspects of the company's operations that touch the public.

“We decided a long time ago that we wanted to be an outstanding service business,” he said, “one that people would want to do business with, feel good about doing business with — and want to work for.”

Toward that end, the company has used a variety of continuous improvement methods to identify departments and processes where improvement was needed and could be achieved. And then, the company carefully measured the results.

Among the 50 areas measured are the time a customer waits in the lobby before being helped; the time it takes for a call to be answered; the length of time someone spends on hold; the frequency with which voice mails are returned the day they are received; the percentage of problems that could be handled with one call, and many others.

Benchmarks are set, said Carnavale — the lobby-waiting threshold was set at five minutes, for example, and the time to answer the phone was pegged at no more than 10 seconds. And then the company goes about finding ways to meet them and then continuously lower the bar.

The company's laser-beam focus on individual components of service says a lot to customers, Carnavale said, but it says just as much to employees. “While what we do says to the customer `this is a great place to do business,'” he explained, “to employees, it says `if you work here, you're going to be working for a different kind of company, one that really cares about the customer.'”

The sum of what the company has achieved has given it something that every business covets — respect, said Carnavale, adding that there is simply no way to underestimate how important that intangible is in the business community or the broader community.

Peterson concurred, and quickly offered the old adage that respect isn't given — it's earned.

At Atlantic, it's been earned through meticulous attention to getting orders right.

In fact, the company offers service guarantees — which recently went from $50 to $100 — if an order isn't on time, isn't accurate, or even if a phone call isn't returned promptly. Last year, the company, which sends out more than 3,000 orders a month, paid out only 56 times, even with sales volume up 19%.

The guarantees keep the company's employees on their toes, Peterson told BusinessWest, but more importantly they project the right images to the consumer.

“Accuracy is a big thing in our business,” he said. “If there's a paper mill that's shut down because of a $2.80 bolt on one of the machines, and they're losing $13,000 an hour ... and we send them the wrong bolt, that's a problem.”

Whose Job Is It Anyway?

Albert acknowledged that while some of the elements to image projection come with a price tag, many do not. “But the broad point to remember is that there is no separate line item for image,” she said. “It is part of everything a company does.”

And therefore, while image-projection begins at the top, it is essentially the job of everyone at the company, not merely the marketing director or the CEO.

Albert said one's assessment of a company's image begins with first contact. Increasingly, this is coming via a trip to the firm's Web site (see related story, Page 22) but in most cases, the point of entry is still the telephone.

While some might look upon phone-messaging systems and voice-mail as necessary evils in this age of advancing technology, there remains no substitute for the human voice, analysts say. At the very least, companies should use an electronic system that loops back to a receptionist, Albert said.

She recommends that CEOs call their companies on a regular basis to hear and experience what the client and potential client goes through when they call. In many cases, those CEOs will become frustrated by long, complicated menus of options, lengthy waits on hold, or the inability to make a connection with a human being.

Often, these calls from managers will prompt some changes, she said, adding that a better course of action is to perform the due diligence up front and therefore not have to wait to hear from a friend, a client, or from personal experience about how annoying the phone system can be.

This due diligence can be rather involved, she said, and should include everything from careful thought given to the person hired to answer the phones — “it doesn't cost any more to hire someone who's friendly than someone who isn't” — to the type of music being played for the benefit of those on hold.

Choice of radio station or piped in music is far more important than many think, she said. Bad choices can send the wrong message.

For example, colleges shouldn't subject young people making decisions about which school to attend to classical music. Meanwhile, using the wrong station may give the caller a chance to hear one of your competitors' commercials while he or she is waiting on hold for one of your salespeople.

The best on-hold solution is information about your company, she said, adding the messages must be consistent with other marketing methods, updated regularly, and truly informative to hold the listener's attention.

Speaking on the broad subject of technology, Albert said that companies must show clients and prospective clients that they are in tuned with the latest advances. Companies that don't have Web sites and executives who don't have E-mail addresses on their business cards are telling people that they're not embracing technology or can't afford to, she said. Neither is a good message to be sending.

Another way image is projected is through employees — how they look, dress, and present themselves and the company, she said.

Dress is a subject that has been given a thorough working over by analysts, and there is no clear answer, said Albert, other than the need to give the matter considerable thought. “Appropriate” is a very subjective term, she acknowledged, but that is the bottom line goal.

For example, she said it might be perfectly acceptable for the CEO of a toy maker or a large sporting goods manufacturer to wear a golf shirt with the company's name and logo, but it probably isn't appropriate for a bank officer to wear the same — even on Friday.

“Just because it's casual Friday does that mean clients don't come to the office that day?” she asked. “You reflect your own image and the company's image by what you wear ... that's why you simply can't be hurt by wearing a suit and a tie.”

The perception of image should be a factor in everything a company does, said Albert, right down to the gifts given to clients during the holidays. “Everyone likes cookies and almost everyone uses a mousepad or a coffee mug,” she said, “but how many of those do you need?”

Albert gave a select group of clients a chocolate CD for the holidays — something different and something that displays what the company does (video and interactive marketing materials). She said she earned a few letters from recipients recognizing both her originality and choice of chocolate — which was exactly the point of the exercise.

Geting the Point Across

Part of the process of putting forth the right image, said McNaughton, is assessing the image you're projecting and then determining if it's the right one.

Often, this process requires the work of objective outside consultants, he said, which is where his company comes in.

McNaughton says businesses come to his company in much the same way people visit the doctor. “They think something's wrong, but often they're not sure what it is or what caused it,” he said.

And like a doctor, Corporate Branding begins by asking questions to find out just what is wrong. The goal is to measure the health and vitality of the company's brand, and this requires talking to people inside and outside the business.

Corporate Branding will assess the brand and assist with the process of what McNaughton calls “corporate branding,” a strategically focused business process that is integrated throughout a company. This process establishes the direction, leadership, clarity of purpose, and inspiration for a corporate brand, he said.

“What we help companies do is make a brand come alive,” he explained.

Doing so is an all-inclusive process, he said, adding that brand encompasses three major components: How one does business; a company's culture — how it treats its employees and interacts with its audiences; and the act of communicating to those audiences — through everything from advertising to the annual report.

The company will prepare for its clients a corporate branding index, said McNaughton, one that measures everything from the company's overall reputation to its management's reputation; from its attractiveness to investors to its desirability as a place to work.

The final product provides a road map for a company that understands the importance of brand and wants to do something about it, he said.

Elliott Heartstone, a principal with Connecticut-based Spectrum Associates, said his company performs a wide range of research work for clients looking to assess their brand or a particular product. Often, the work is conducted to gain a “snapshot” of the company prior to a new-product launch or a new ad campaign.

Through the use of focus groups, the company determines for clients, which include banks, hospitals, manufacturing firms, and others, what the public perception is of an institution or individual product.

Using questions like `if this company was a car, what kind would it be?' Spectrum can get a detailed feeling for how a company is perceived in relation to its competitors. Using a five-point scale, Spectrum asks respondents to rate the importance of a particular attribute, and then how the client performs in that area compared to the competition.

Such data is critical, he said, because companies can't gauge their image themselves.

The process of defining or shaping an image must involve everyone in a company, stressed McNaughton, who said he believes too many businesses, especially smaller entities, think and act as if branding is merely advertising or marketing. In reality, it's everything from its salability with investors to its retention of employees.

For this reason, he said the task of brand development or maintenance cannot be given solely to the advertising agency, “because their goals and your goals aren't necessarily the same.”

He said he is happy to see more companies taking change of the brand and not relinquishing that duty to ad agencies. “Some people say they just don't want to work that hard,” he said, “but many are taking back responsibility for their brand, which is good because if you leave it to the agency many times they'll just want to go out and do more advertising.”

And often, correcting a branding or image problem goes well beyond marketing, he said.

Making Your Mark

Assessing one's image can be a lengthy, often expensive proposition, said Albert, but it's something companies must do to one degree or another.

And the process must be ongoing, she said, because clients, employees, and the public never stop forming opinions and assigning labels.

Parking spots, names on welcome boards, voice-mail, background music, and even chocolate CDs are all little things. But together they paint the big picture.