How to Get all Your Customer
Relations Teams to Speak in One
Consistent Brand Voice:
Air Canada Case Study
Victoria Benoit, Director of Customer Care
Air Canada
Leslie O’Flahavan, Owner
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Introductions
•  Victoria Benoit, Director of
Customer Care
•  Leslie O’Flahavan, Owner
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Introductions
•  What two words would your customers
use to describe your brand’s personality
based on its advertising?
_____________ and _____________
•  What two words would your customers
used to describe your brand’s personality
based on the tone of customer service?
_____________ and _____________
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Workshop overview
•  Part 1: Air Canada’s corporate brand
project and “AC Talks,” its Customer
Care brand voice project
•  Part 2: Rolling out a brand voice project
throughout a customer care organization
•  Part 3: The Puzzle Pieces: Choosing
tasks for your brand voice project
•  Part 4: AC Talks outcomes and Phase 2
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Part 1: Air Canada’s corporate
brand project and “AC Talks,”
its Customer Care brand voice
project
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How Air Canada knew it needed to
update its email writing style
June 2016 campaign: #TestDriveCanada
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How Air Canada knew it needed to
update its email writing style
Customer’s email:
We missed our connection from Montreal to Ottawa
yesterday. When we arrived from Miami, Customs was
very long. Despite trying our best to make the line, we
missed our connection. Air Canada services could not
provide us with any flights that evening as they were all
full. They said to catch the next bus out of Montreal, but
it was too late to buy tickets. There were no more
buses that evening. We therefore had to rent a car to
get back to Ottawa. I think it would be appropriate for
Air Canada to cover the cost of my car rental due to
these expenses and delays that are out of our control.
Please let me know if I’ve contacted the right person
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Your opinion …
How does a disconnect between
the tone of voice used by
Marketing and the tone of voice
used by Customer Care hurt a
company’s ability to deliver
excellent customer service?
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What were the components of Air
Canada’s brand voice update in 2016?
•  Brand principles
•  Brand voice document
•  Uniform update
•  Livery update
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Overview of 2016 “AC Talks”
Brand Voice Project
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Overview of 2016 Air Canada
Brand Voice update
1.  WE ARE CLEAR, CONCISE AND STRAIGHTFORWARD.
We value each other’s time, and that of our customers.
2.  WE REPRESENT CANADA.
Our voice should emulate the best attributes of Canadians, including politeness and modesty.
3.  WE SOUND LIKE PEOPLE, NOT A COMPANY.
We try to ensure our communications are warm and professional, not stilted or bureaucratic.
4.  WE ARE CONSCIOUS OF THE CHANNEL.
A tone of voice that is suitable for one channel may not be inappropriate for a different channel.
5.  WE SHARE KNOWLEDGE.
We understand that our customers want to be fully informed and we make every
effort to ensure that they are.
6.  COMMUNICATION IS ABOUT LISTENING.
That we have listened closely, and that we are empathetic, should be evident in
all our communications.
7.  IT’S ABOUT OUR CUSTOMERS, NOT ABOUT US.
Always try to view situations from the customer perspective.
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Why did Air Canada need to do the
AC Talks project?
1.  Feedback from focus groups in 2015
2.  One airline; one voice
3.  Feedback from individual customers
“I don't want a government answer, I
want an answer that answers the "why" unfortunately your response does not do
that. I do not want to be told that my
loyalty is important. Those are words.
Don't tell me you value my business.
Show me.”
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Part 2: Rolling out a brand
voice project throughout a
customer care organization
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Your strategy…
If you were going to ask your
email customer service agents to
write to customers in an updated
brand voice, what would your top
three tasks be to enable them to
do this?
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How Air Canada is organized to
deliver customer care
•  Number of teams
•  Number of agents
•  Where teams are located
•  How customer care management is
structured
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Want your frontline agents to write to
customers in your company’s brand voice?
A (ridiculously) long to-do list for a brand voice project
A. 
B. 
C. 
D. 
E. 
F. 
G. 
H. 
I. 
J. 
K. 
L. 
M. 
Screen your current email agents for writing skills
Hire new email agents who have the writing skills you need
Have a contest to choose a name and a logo for your brand voice project
Provide email writing training to help agents learn to write in your brand voice
Provide basic grammar and punctuation training
Update your email quality scorecard to account for brand voice writing skills
Update email coaching practices to help agents build brand voice writing skills
Distribute your corporate brand voice guidelines to your customer care teams
Revise your library of email templates so they’re written in your company’s
brand voice
Develop a Customer Care-specific Writing Style Guide
Develop brand voice training for your Social Media customer care team
Conduct an Executive Briefing so people in the C-suite know about your brand
voice project and all your teams’ efforts
Measure customers’ perceptions of brand voice in customer service before and
after your brand
voice project
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Here are the Air Canada chose
for the AC Talks project
•  Choose a name and logo for the brand voice
projects: AC Talks
•  Rewrite hundreds of email templates, eliminate
old ones, translate rewritten ones
•  Develop a Customer Care Writing Style Guide
•  Provide email writing training
•  Disseminate the corporate brand voice
principles to Customer Care email writers
•  Conduct an Executive Briefing
•  Develop custom training for the Social Media
team
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Part 3: The Puzzle Pieces:
Choosing tasks for your brand
voice project
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Hands-on practice:
With the AC Talks project as an
example, how would you structure a
brand voice project for your
organization?
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Put together your brand voice
project puzzle
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Part 4: AC Talks outcomes
and Phase 2
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AC Talks: Things are going great!
•  We’ve aligned the customer service brand
• 
• 
• 
• 
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voice with the corporate brand voice
We’ve improved cooperation among
teams
We’ve made it easier to phone customers
to follow up on email complaints
We’ve improved consistency among
channels: email, phone, social
We’re getting positive feedback from our
agents
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AC Talks improved the way Air
Canada writes email to customers
Customer’s email
I've been placed on a surgical list, with my
operation likely to take place early next year
(January) with full recovery in 4 weeks. I need to
cancel my trip to make myself available for surgery
and recover in time for future travels. My tickets
are non-refundable. Is it possible to obtain a full
refund or credit due to these medical
circumstances? Thanks, Karl Edelin
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AC Talks: Phase 2 plans for 2017
•  Training: Email Writing Refresher
Workshop
•  Training: AC Talks on the Phone
•  Additional guidance in the Customer
Care Writing Style Guide
•  A new publication: Customer Care Guide
to Giving Great Service on the Phone
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QUESTIONS? COMMENTS?
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Contact us
Victoria Benoit
[email protected]
514-451-3431
Leslie O’Flahavan
[email protected]
301-989-9583
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Share your insights
on Twitter!
#SOCAPsymp17
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