Turning consumers into full-blown advocates
Brands cannot stop with closing a sales transaction if they need to stay connected
In today’s world, where consumers are bombarded with offers and promotions on daily basis, just having satisfied customers is not enough for any brand. While it is true that a dissatisfied customer will most likely move to competition, it is also possible for satisfied customers to be enticed away by competition, via better service, features or offers.
Many organisations tend to have in place elaborate programmes to monitor ‘customer satisfaction’, whereas what they actually need to measure and monitor is ‘customer loyalty’.
A loyal customer is one who not only uses the brand most often but also actively promotes the brand to others. Many marketing experts tend to believe that the impact created by brand advocates is much more than that achieved via mass market advertising — especially since those on social media tend to believe in recommendations given by known people.
In recent times, brands like Apple, Facebook, PlayStation, Starbucks, etc, have relied heavily on positive word of mouth spread by advocates to gain market share.
So how can brands and service providers build brand advocates? Are there any local examples from the UAE of brands that have been able to do this?
Some things we’ve learnt based our experience of conducting Net Promoter Score studies across many categories (NPS — a score that can range from -100 to +100, calculated as the difference in percentage of promoters vs. percentage of detractors for any brand):
First impressions matter: The impressions that customers develop during their early interactions with a brand or service provider do create a lasting impact. This is especially important for the automotive and financial services sectors, where the signing-up/ purchase process can create strong positive or negative impressions.
Hence, it is critical for brands to understand the customer experience as they are going through these stages, and take corrective action to make the experience a more positive one. In the UAE, brands like Porsche and ADCB seem to be leading within their sectors, driven by a positive sales experience.
After sales service is vitally important: In categories such as durables and automobiles, after-sales is a critically important parameter. Poor support can create dissonance in the product ownership, impacting both future purchase consideration as well as advocacy.
Service that is easily accessible, prompt and transparent tends to create a positive ownership experience, leading on to brand advocacy. For example, within the premium automotive category, we saw positive endorsements for Range Rover and Mercedes on after-sales service aspects.
Customers value consistency: Airlines as a category had a high level of advocacy in UAE, and among them, Emirates has had the highest NPS score for two years running. They tend to focus a lot on the consistency of customer experience and this could be the key to creating positive brand experience.
Offers do work, but not at the cost of basic performance parameters: While many brands succeed in enticing new customers via offers, if they are unable to deliver on basic performance parameters, customers tend to get disillusioned over the long term.
This is especially true of the telecom industry, which is heavily reliant on offers and promotions, but service providers often tend to fall short on basics like network quality.
Helping the customer save time and effort creates a positive impact: In today’s busy world, brands that help customers be more efficient by saving their time and effort tend to create high loyalty. Within the service industry, this has implications on website design, call centre set up, grievance redressal mechanisms, etc.
Organizations that can solve issues quickly, are likely to create loyal customers.
Enable customers to create a brand story: In more developed markets, brands are encouraging consumers to create and share ‘brand stories’.
Ford created an online community of fans, gave each of them a Ford Fiesta for six months, and encouraged them to post their experiences with the car on YouTube and Facebook. These are powerful tools to create buzz and advocacy for brands, which will start getting more popular in Middle East as well.
While the approach may differ from one brand to another, there can be no two ways about the fact that for any organisation to succeed, it needs to create a core set of loyal customers, who are not only frequent users but also advocates of the brand.
