B2B Marketing

Much has been debated about the low level of customer brand loyalty in an age where the balance of power has shifted from the producer to the consumer. This has been largely due factors such as globalisation and the prevalence of the Internet. As I see it, customer satisfaction is like a ‘hygiene factor’. In itself it is probably not enough to build sustained customer lifetime value (i.e. passives) but without it, you will probably end up with disloyal customers (i.e. detractors). Organisations should look at how they can become even more intimate with their customers and convert customer satisfaction to customer loyalty. But the question remains, how do you measure customer loyalty (i.e. promoters) in a way that does not involve analysis paralysis? One method worth looking at is the Net Promoter Score by asking customers a single question such as "How likely is it that you would recommend us to a friend or colleague?"). Based on their responses, customers can be segmented into one of the three groups outlined already. There has been much debate on the pros and cons of using a single metric in this way and care should be taken when simplifying data but conceptually the idea makes sense and if it is used to align an organisation around more intimate customer experiences then it has to be a useful activity. Go to http://netpromoter.com for more.