Getting to the root of things

Been listening to another great Jaffe Juice podcast from Joseph Jaffe. He interviews the authors of the book Answering the ultimate question


The book proposes a simplification of our brand evaluation methodologies by asking one "ultimate" question - "Would you recommend this company to your friend" and pursuing "real life" responses - i.e. not artificially staged, focus groups or sterile interviews. Rather using a "Net Promotor" methodology that exposes and leverages true customer experiences and attitudes.

The authors group 3 types of consumers - promoters (who score a 9/10 on the ultimate question), detractors (who score 0-6), neutrals (who score 7/8). The authors studied consumer behaviours in relation to responses given on this question across a range of product categories and an interesting finding was indeed this scale - which they mention is influenced by "positive bias' - essentially in asking a question, people try to give a positive response - and rating a 6 isn't really positive rather it is "damming by faint praise".

So really in asking this "ultimate question" and then digging deep to understand the drivers and personal experiences that have led to this response, we get a really rich territory to understand how our brands are performing in the real world of consumer experience.

With this methodology of brand evaluation, it's clear that the marketing focus should indeed start with customer experience rather than relying on advertising to drive brand performance.

But in order for organizations to be able to leverage the power of "Net promotors" they need to tackle their own organizational issues. With so much old school "wisdom" entrenched in their business, it's difficult for large companies to adapt to a new way of approaching their marketing. A business' internal branding, it's people, and the collective culture and philosophies and communications networks, need to be addressed before putting innovative strategic communications in place.

As Jaffe succinctly puts it COST = Culture, Organization, Strategy and Tactics.

The way I look at it is this - how do employees relate and communicate with each other? and from there - how do departments? Is there a communications network in place which enables the organization to interact naturally and behave as a community? Is there a flow of communication and ideas? Are we developing and enhancing a rich internal culture and philosophy?

Addressing these important internal issues will enable organizations to benefit from their frequent & rich yet under utilised customer interactions. Customer experience employees have a relationship with the end customer and the knowledge they acquire on a daily basis must not be squandered. Rather these employees could be connected to executive level employees via an internal community. In joining these organizational dots - we empower not only employees, who will feel more passionate about the brand and become far better brand representatives, but also empower customers as they should no longer be frustratedly talking to a bored and disconnected customer service rep.

I could go on, but my blogs are long enough already - listen to this great podcast to get more detail on both the authors thoughts on evolving organizations to leverage "Net Promotor" and focus on the "Ultimate question".