Why Customer Advocacy?
The Rapid Evolution from TQ, Satisfaction, Loyalty and Recommendation Measurement
Formal research on customer opinions has been going on since the 1950s. Much of it had to do with perceptions of product/service quality and satisfaction, engagement, and eventually, loyalty and recommendation. For decades, data on these attitudes and feelings was sufficient to provide companies with general insight and direction.
Click to find out more. |
By the early 1990s, control of brand and supplier selection
had shifted away from companies and moved to consumers, a result of
several pivotal, paradigm shifts:
Beginning around 2000, major consulting organizations began to recognize that these critical changes were likely to have a profound impact on businesses.
Instead of relying solely on such historic measures as satisfaction, loyalty, engagement and recommendation, companies would need to identify and focus on something more contemporary, more actionable, and more predictive of key monetizing business outcomes, such as share of wallet.
That ‘something’ was ultimately defined as customer advocacy, i.e., behavior driven by a strong emotional connection with brand and enthusiastic support of brand, which defines the level of customer (client) involvement.
It is critical to note, Advocacy is not recommendation, Advocacy is not word-of-mouth, Advocacy is not referral, Advocacy is not promotion...Advocacy is much more.
The consulting companies conducted many insightful advocacy studies, issuing statements such as:
“Leading companies want to build strong bases of loyal profitable customers who are also advocates for the organization. Advocates spend more, remain customers longer, and refer family and friends, thus increasing the quality of the existing customer base and new acquisitions.”
“We predict that customer advocacy will be the new focus for business leaders. Customer advocacy will become the single most important initiative that cutting-edge, forward-thinking companies will adopt.”
Having identified the power of customer advocacy to influence the customer’s own behavior and the behavior of others, the next challenge was to create, and prove the effectiveness of, a state-of-the-art research metric, or framework, for measuring and leveraging it.
Based on the level of customer involvement, SHARE+ classifies your customer base into four groups on an Advocacy Ladder, the most effective segmentation scheme in the industry. Each segment calls for different actions to help build more advocates of your brand (of your business) and reduce the alienated to achieve your growth objectives.
- • Growing Internet penetration and cell phone usage — communications enablers
• Over-saturation of ‘push’ advertising and promotional messaging through traditional mass electronic and print media
• Heightened public distrust in the honesty and authenticity of corporations
• Empowerment of consumers to express their opinions and feelings and the growth of social networks
Beginning around 2000, major consulting organizations began to recognize that these critical changes were likely to have a profound impact on businesses.
Instead of relying solely on such historic measures as satisfaction, loyalty, engagement and recommendation, companies would need to identify and focus on something more contemporary, more actionable, and more predictive of key monetizing business outcomes, such as share of wallet.
That ‘something’ was ultimately defined as customer advocacy, i.e., behavior driven by a strong emotional connection with brand and enthusiastic support of brand, which defines the level of customer (client) involvement.
It is critical to note, Advocacy is not recommendation, Advocacy is not word-of-mouth, Advocacy is not referral, Advocacy is not promotion...Advocacy is much more.
The consulting companies conducted many insightful advocacy studies, issuing statements such as:
“Leading companies want to build strong bases of loyal profitable customers who are also advocates for the organization. Advocates spend more, remain customers longer, and refer family and friends, thus increasing the quality of the existing customer base and new acquisitions.”
“We predict that customer advocacy will be the new focus for business leaders. Customer advocacy will become the single most important initiative that cutting-edge, forward-thinking companies will adopt.”
Having identified the power of customer advocacy to influence the customer’s own behavior and the behavior of others, the next challenge was to create, and prove the effectiveness of, a state-of-the-art research metric, or framework, for measuring and leveraging it.
Based on the level of customer involvement, SHARE+ classifies your customer base into four groups on an Advocacy Ladder, the most effective segmentation scheme in the industry. Each segment calls for different actions to help build more advocates of your brand (of your business) and reduce the alienated to achieve your growth objectives.
