From “Zero-Defect” Quality Circles to the Customer Experience

Summary of White Paper #15

Market Probe Europe’s Nanno Palte, Vice President, and Dominique Vanmarsenille, Country Manager, examine how thinking about managing customer relationships has changed with increased understanding of the complexities involved in the strategic use of those relationships.

• The evolution from production-based focus on “zero-defect” to Total Quality Management to Customer Satisfaction, loyalty and Net Promoter Score does not go far enough in measuring emotion as a key component of the customer experience.
• Recent bank customer study illustrates how segmentation by emotion has actionable impact on “share of wallet.”
• Advocacy blends attitudes with positive and negative word-of-mouth and emotional brand connection in such a way as to enable prioritization of factors to optimize “happy explorers” and minimize “destroyers.”

Market Probe’s research on the relevancy of emotion to cross- and up-selling opportunities led to the first advocacy research framework to embrace the new realities of customer decision-making. SHARE+ can be applied to transactional, brand and communication, and strategic relationship studies to identify the strength of the brand franchise, especially in monetizing factors, relative to competitors.