Customer Advocates: Navigating the Gap Between Expectations vs Reality

In his book "The Loyalty Effect," Author Fred Reichhel discussed "finding and keeping good customers, productive employees, and supportive investors... to generate superior results." Utilize Google to delve into this topic, and you'll find this article useful in understanding how customer advocacy plays a role in customer retention and loyalty.

Though "The Loyalty Effect" was penned in 1989, the ideas presented still hold good advice for marketers today. When you have a loyal customer base, you have an opportunity to transform them into brand ambassadors for your business. Amplifying their testimonials on your website, social media pages, and other marketing materials increases visibility and credibility within your organization.

The power of the internet is immense with a staggering 81% of shoppers researching a product online before purchasing. In this initial stage of the customer journey, new customers seek educational content. Having advocate testimonials available, backed by promoter scores, paves a trustworthy path for your products or services, backed by the experiences of satisfied users.

Over the course of history, marketing has made a 180-degree turn. Previously, marketing's stages were linear, and companies mostly focused internally on increasing sales and customer numbers with little regard for customer integration. But today's world requires organizations to leverage the customer experience and engagement with customer advocates to boost revenue and brand awareness, adding up to the reward of improved brand perception and increased sales.

While the marketing team's goal is to reach your target audience and highlight your product or service benefits, they now have to factor in the motivation of customers. The non-linear customer journey unfolding today poses a challenge. This complex process involves multiple touchpoints across various channels and devices, not forgetting the explosion of social media channels. Google, Amazon's website, social media platforms - the journey may start anywhere and end up in physical stores. Diversified approaches, or options, have become a necessity in today's customer acquisition world.

Option-wise, as a business, typically run by dedicated business owners, the importance you place on sales enablement solutions, and a well-versed internal sales team is tremendous. The integration of customer concepts or feedback in the training stages of your sales team can be very useful. The investment in the best training for them is equally significant. Leveraging the words of customer advocates, which often come in the form of feedback, suggestions, and concerns, provides invaluable insights.

These can help formulate compelling handbooks and case studies to keep them in tune with company policy and product knowledge. It was a time of "hard work and little gain," where words would often fall on deaf ears despite the effort put in. However, the reality was the hard grind of the nine-to-five. So when the script flipped and we started harnessing the internet's empowering power, marketing moved into an era of customer engagement with little effort but huge reward.

Be honest. That sounds a whole lot better to me, a world with recognition in regard to the power of the customer voice. This shift increases the options available to businesses for effective marketing and interaction with their customer base.

Take a look at today's marketing climate, and you won't be able to deny that we are in the era of new advertising. Now, brand names are not just spread through TV commercials; they're found in blog posts, shared with customer advocacy efforts, echoed through social media posts and publicized across social media touchpoints. Understanding these stages and keeping track of this advancement is crucial for the success of any marketing strategy.

Marketing is no longer just TV commercials, billboards, etc. It's the internet age, and consumers have developed relationships with online shopping, online banking, next-day shipping, and real-time customer support. We live in a world of online shopping, websites featuring brand reviews, and internet fame through videos and more. As such, marketing engagement strategies needed to evolve to align with the goals of the new-age customers, and they have, often through customer loyalty programs. The perks of this evolution are evident in the effectiveness with which audiences can be reached across various topics. This historic transition has opened up numerous options for customer engagement and business growth.

Today's customers with their suggestions and concerns play a crucial role and have a more significant impact on the success of your business than ever before. And a growing number of companies have taken action, leveraging tools to engage this previously untapped marketing channel, their own customers.

According to JitBit, when it comes to making sales, customer advocates are up to three times more successful than sales reps. This is because customer advocates are a golden ticket to success in marketing campaigns and ad campaigns. Understanding this reality provides a new motivation for businesses to invest and integrate such strategies into their marketing efforts.

Not only is it free advertising, but people trust information from their relationships more than they trust brands. That's why more and more companies are recognizing the role of customer advocacy in their marketing efforts today. By maintaining a strong customer advocacy vision and leveraging referral marketing, brands can witness significant improvement in the way their products and services are perceived.

Customers wield more power than ever before, and when customer expectations differ from reality, they can effortlessly pivot to the competition. To avoid such customer churn, brands need to perform comprehensive analysis on customer behavior and preferences to tailor their offerings precisely.

That's why companies need to have a proactive customer advocacy strategy and invest in sophisticated customer experience management tools, encouraging customer empowerment. This often requires a number of skills and qualifications to understand and implement effectively.

Effective customer advocacy strategy often sets the goals for how your customers interact with each other and share their experiences. By encouraging your customers to engage on social media, review sites, and other online platforms, you can build up a community of satisfied clients who endorse your business and its products. Once you have an accurate profile of these clients, planning strategies become simpler.

But before we get ahead of ourselves, let's use our tools to get a better understanding of what customer advocacy truly entails, through case studies and examples. This approach allows for a more intricate analysis and refinement of advocacy strategies.

Some dismiss it as a buzzword, while others perceive it as a passing trend. But customer advocacy, especially when backed by well-structured customer loyalty programs, has emerged as a lasting and impactful feature of the marketing industry that allows you, as business owners, to extract maximum value from your existing customers.

The concept of customer advocacy rests on the idea that customers are your greatest and most reliable marketing asset. Service-leading organizations, from fledgling startups to seasoned enterprises, comprehend the influence of a well-trained staff and strategic pricing methods. By enabling customers to achieve a fulfilling experience with your brand, you can fortify their loyalty, create active advocates, and cement trust. All of these components can drive significant revenue growth.