Shift from Customer Satisfaction to the‘ Relevance Index’
Customer satisfaction scores measure how happy your existing customers are with their last transaction. They tell you almost nothing about whether the next generation of buyers is considering you at all. The most important research question for a brand concerned about its long-term health is not " how satisfied are our customers?" It is " who should be choosing us and isn ' t, and why?"
Commission research specifically targeting the customers you should be winning but are not. Ask them what brands come to mind in your category and why. Ask them what they would need to see from your brand to consider it. These answers will be more useful than any satisfaction index.
Then ask,“ How much of our retention is genuine loyalty, and how much is switching inertia?” If your customers would leave if leaving were easier, you do not have loyalty. You have a temporary structural advantage that the next competitor will remove in time.
The second is to build in a regular honest audit
Brand decline thrives in the gap between internal perception and external reality. Executives can become so familiar with their own positioning that they mistake the intent for the impact, confusing what they are trying to communicate with what their audience is receiving.
Periodically( every 2 years or so), before you produce any new brand communications, do this: list the three attributes your leadership team believes the brand stands for. Then commission an independent party to interview both current customers and potential customers and ask them to describe the brand in their own words.
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If your leadership team believes the brand stands for innovation and the market describes it as traditional, you are in the first phase of decline. If your team believes the brand is premium and the market describes it as expensive, you have a value communication problem. The gap between those two lists is your most actionable strategic intelligence.
The third is to keep asking what job you are hired to do
This is the discipline that prevents the success trap from becoming a fatal one. It requires you to define your brand ' s purpose at the level where the customer ' s life is affected, not in terms of your current product or service, but in terms of the need it serves.
A bank does not sell accounts. It sells the secure, efficient movement and growth of value. A telecommunications company does not sell airtime. It sells connection, access and the capacity to participate in economic and social life. A logistics company does not deliver packages. It delivers the promise that what you ordered will arrive when and where you need it.
Defined this way, the brand ' s purpose is considerably more resilient than any product. When a new technology or a new competitor offers to serve the same purpose more effectively, the brand that knows what it is for has a response. The brand that has confused the purpose with the product does not.
Every quarter, convene a small cross-functional group( not just marketing, but product, operations and customer service) and ask: who is changing our customers ' expectations right now? Not in our category specifically. Anywhere.
The customer ' s benchmark for a " good digital experience " is being set by the smoothest app they have used recently, regardless of industry. The customer ' s expectation of delivery speed is being set by the fastest delivery they have experienced anywhere. Your direct competitors are not the only source of the standards your brand is being held to.
What the mirror shows
There is a reason the honest brand audit is so rarely conducted with genuine rigour. It requires looking at your brand as your customers see it rather than as you intend it to be seen. It requires accepting that what you believe you are communicating and what your audience is receiving may be significantly different things. It requires the courage to act on what you find, even when acting means changing something you have invested in and are proud of.
The most valuable question in brand management is not, " How do we get better at what we do?" It is, " Is what we do still what our customers need?" Ask it honestly. Ask it regularly. Be genuinely willing to follow the answer wherever it leads.
The mirror is perhaps the most humbling instrument in a brand manager’ s toolkit. Yet, when used with honesty and intention, it also becomes one of the most powerful catalysts for growth, transformation, and lasting profitability.
Marion Wakahe is a marketing professional who is passionate about business growth and sustainability and its role in peoples’ empowerment. She is of the opinion that the marketing function is the primary driver of business growth. You can engage with her via email: MWakahe @ gmail. com.