customer advocacy re-evaluating_the_concept_of_care_ nicolette_wuring

Customer advocacy: Re-evaluating theconcept of CAREReceived (in revised form): 22nd April, 2010

Nicolette Wuringis an international customer advocacy expert, author and keynote speaker. She is the founder and

managing director of Customer Management Services: a consultancy which specialises in connecting

people, supporting them in the transformation of their business from shareholder-driven to

stakeholder- and people-driven, increasing the value for all involved and generating customer

advocacy.

Nicolette Wuring, Customer Management Services, Keizer Karelweg 389, NL-1181RG Amstelveen,The NetherlandsTel: +31 652007662; E-mail: [email protected]; Website: http://customeradvocacy.nl

AbstractCustomer advocacy is rapidly gaining traction and becoming ‘the buzz-phrase’. This paper aimsto create awareness for what customer advocacy really is and what it requires from companiesthat set out to generate it. The author stresses that it is necessary to re-evaluate the concept of‘care’. Where consumers are flooded with an abundance of choice, and products and servicesare completely commoditised, CARE can make the difference: ‘When you care, people notice’.But do not think that consumers can be tricked into it. They will know and their (positive ornegative) messages spread faster and across larger geographic areas than a company will everbe able to afford, no matter how large the marketing budget. As a member of the board ofUPC Broadband Europe (the largest cable operator outside the USA, owned by Liberty Global) inthe years 2004–2008, the author led the transformational process that resulted in theturnaround of the reputation of the company from worst to best in class customer service. Thisprocess resulted in a strong business case. Customer advocacy delivers sustainable businessand financial results and materially impacts the bottom-line of a company. But be warned, it isa transformational process that touches the core of the organisation.

KEYWORDS: journey, alignment, dream, environment, governance, time, care, service,sustainable competitive advantage, people

MANAGEMENT IMPLICATIONS. Customer advocacy can not only be positive, but also be negative.. Generating customer advocacy is a learning process, a journey from ‘A’ to

‘somewhere’.. It requires strategic alignment across silos.. It requires a strong sense of purpose, a shared dream across the organisation. An

ambition that goes beyond words. Mission, vision and values made tangible and wordstranslated into a dream, metaphors and icons.

. It requires a safe environment for employees, in which they can safely change theirbehaviour and learn from their mistakes. Generating customer advocacy meansmoving beyond training and beyond protocols that tell employees what they have tofeel, think, say and do.

# Lise Gerson Lohman

Journal of Customer & Contact Centre Management VOL. 1, NO. 2, PP 165–176 # HENRY STEWART PUBLICATIONS 1758–4256 (2011) 165

. It requires governance that balances quantity and quality as perceived by employeesand customers, that balances output (internally driven, e!ciency, operationalexcellence) and impact (external perspective, defined by perceptions of employees andcustomers).

. Last, but not least, it takes time.

Genuine care combined with operational excellence, multiplied by advocacy impacts theresults of a company. If the advocacy is zero or below, this will be reflected in the resultsof a company; the higher the advocacy, the higher the results.

INTRODUCTIONWhen the author started to write her book,1 at the beginning of 2008, she put a Googlealert on the phrase ‘customer advocacy’. Until the fourth quarter of 2009, the alerts wererare, slowly increasing from once per month to once per week. Recently, the author hasstarted to receive many alerts every day. Customer advocacy is rapidly gaining tractionand becoming ‘the buzz-phrase’. Given the declining value of traditional marketing andthe growing power of consumers, companies have started to recognise the strategic valueof serving customers. The author’s opinion and experience is that if a company wants toretain their existing customers and attract new customers, generating customer advocacyis key. Customer advocacy can only be generated when a company genuinely cares aboutits customers, as human beings. The term ‘genuinely care’ is described in detail below.Care is connected with care for the family, children, parents or healthcare. The ethics of

care describe care as a much broader concept; as ‘an essential form of involvement withthe world’. Would ‘the world’ look di"erent today if people, for instance, in the financialworld, had shown an essential form of involvement not just with shareholders, but alsowith stakeholders such as employees and customers?The German philosopher Martin Heidegger (1889–1976) stated: Care is the meaning of

being (‘Sorge ist der Sinne des Da-Seins’).2 Without care, being has no meaning. Carecreates meaning. It is what makes people’s actions human, what makes them humanbeings. Care is also what makes organisations human. An organisation that does not carecannot create meaning for people as human beings, be it employees or customers.An organisation that is primarily a smooth-running factory is not able to create

meaning. Its reason for being lies in its ability to run smoothly, better than any otherfactory. As soon as another factory runs smoother (ie, more e!ciently), it has lost itsreason for being. What of the (quality of the) products it produces? Could there lie a‘reason for being’ in those? Perhaps ten years ago, but in this day and age, where marketsare flooded with comparable products and services, the answer is no. Today, companiesand brands need care as a di"erentiator. Care makes customers feel cared for, recognisedand appreciated as human beings. It creates an emotional connection with a brand. Thelikelihood that customers will become ambassadors (advocates) for a brand is high.Ambassadors recommend a brand in the o"- and online world. Customer advocacycannot be bought; it has to be earned. This paper is intended to give some clues as to howan environment can be created that is the fertile soil for generating customer advocacy.

(C!E) A = R

Care times execution, multiplied by advocacy equals results.Genuine care combined with operational excellence (a prerequisite), multiplied by

advocacy impacts the (financial) results of a company. If the advocacy is zero or below,

Wuring

Journal of Customer & Contact Centre Management VOL. 1, NO. 2, PP 165–176 # HENRY STEWART PUBLICATIONS 1758–4256 (2011)166

this will be reflected in the results of the company. The higher the advocacy, the higher theresults.What exactly is customer advocacy? How can it be ‘created’? Customer advocacy is not

the ‘next trick in the marketing trade’. It cannot be created. Companies can only hope togenerate it. One cannot pay a customer a premium to become an advocate. Generatingcustomer advocacy takes time and the following two key characteristics in the waycompanies do business:

1. It requires consistency and continuity between what is felt, thought, said and done.Between ‘who you are (the DNA of a company), ‘who you say you are’(marketingcommunication and PR) and ‘who ‘‘people’’ (employees, customers, consumers) sayyou are’ (Figure 1).

2. Customer advocacy requires genuine ‘care’: sincere attention for and involvement withpeople.

Generating customer advocacy is first and foremost a learning process. A journey from‘A’ to ‘somewhere’ (Figure 2).

THE JOURNEYThe journey consists of four phases, seeing di"erently, thinking di"erently, doingdi"erently, in order to be di"erent, as human beings and as a company. Four phases inwhich companies have to question the way they do business.

Seeing DifferentlyOne should see through the eyes of the customer. If one imagines that one is a customerof their own company, what do they see? What is the feeling that one gets about the

Figure 1: Consistency between ‘who you are’, ‘who you say you are’ and ‘who ‘people’ say you are’

Customer advocacy


company? How do they, as a human being, feel treated? What is the story that is beingtold about the company?

Thinking DifferentlySeeing through the eyes of the customer, what do they think about the company? Whatmatters to customers? Do customers have a preference for the company? Why? If thecompany ceases to exist tomorrow, will it be missed by its customers? What is it that theywill miss?

Doing DifferentlySeeing through the eyes of the customer, thinking from their perspective of what they willmiss should the company cease to exist tomorrow, what should be done di"erently? Whatshould be done di"erently to give the customers that unique feeling? What should thecompany do that will make its customers prefer it over other alternatives, want to stay,buy more and willingly recommend it to their family and (o"- and online) friends?

Being DifferentThe company succeeds in giving its customers an experience that is relevant and unique tothem as a human being, time and again. It is an experience that is so unique thatcustomers gladly come back for more and voluntarily recommend the company to theirfamily and friends. The reputation of the company is unique, not only do its customersstay, and spend more money, but also their trust is such that operational costs decrease.Marketing and sales costs decrease, because ‘it’ sells itself. New customers are attractedbecause people they trust recommended the company to them. Congratulations are inorder. The organisation has been successfully transformed from a smoothly runningfactory into a healthy ecosystem, in which things and people, doing and being, quantity

Figure 2: A journey from ‘A’ to ‘somewhere’

Wuring


and quality, output and impact are balanced. It has been possible to trigger not only theminds, but also the hearts of the employees, customers and the organisation as a whole.All the people in the organisation have learned how to create and sustain a healthyecosystem.Questioning the way business is done does not stop here, but also requires:

. Strategic alignment across silos and alignment of short (current) and long-term (thenext three to five years) strategic goals and actions.

. Governance that balances quantity and quality as perceived by employees and thecustomers, that balances output (internally driven, e!ciency, operational excellence)and impact (external perspective, defined by perceptions of employees and customers(Figure 3).

. A safe environment for employees, in which they can safely change their behaviourand learn from their mistakes. Generating customer advocacy means moving beyondtraining, beyond protocols telling employees what they have to feel, think, say and do.Behaviour that is internally driven breathes the authentic quality that will make adi"erence in the perception of customers. It requires that employees are advocates fortheir company. Employee advocacy is a prerequisite for generating customer advocacy.Consistency between what employees feel and think and what they say and do touchescustomers at an emotional level. It creates customer experiences that have a positiveimpact on the reputation of a company. Conversely, inconsistency creates experiencesthat feel unreal to customers and generates negative customer advocacy.

. A strong sense of purpose, a dream (Figure 4) that is shared across the organisation.An ambition that goes beyond words. Mission, vision and values made tangible andwords translated into a dream using metaphors and icons, so that employees caninternalise the dream, so that the dream can become meaningful for them as a humanbeing and they develop their own stories.

. Last but not least, it takes time. Generating employee and customer advocacy is notsomething that can be achieved overnight. It takes time to change behaviour, to createconsistency and continuity over a longer period of time, at all levels, individual,departmental, cross-departmental, organisational as well as the outside world,customers, the market and society.

ALIGNMENTWhat department is being referred to with the term ‘customer care’? What is the maingoal of the department? Is it to care for, show an essential form of involvement withcustomers? In 99 per cent of cases the focus is on minimising cost, on dealing withinteractions as e!ciently as possible from a company perspective. The way interactionsare handled is output driven (Figure 3). Maybe there is some consideration given to theoutcome (Figure 3), the customer experience. What impact (Figure 3) does it have on acustomer as a human being?Generating customer advocacy requires that everyone aligns their strategy and strategic

goals and actions in the short and long term. It is probable that the ambition isaddressing the impact level, but the strategic goals and actions are all addressing output(internal focus) and outcome (adding a bit of external focus). Where impact is concerned,the white spots become painfully clear. The company fails to achieve their ambition, theimpact, tangible and measurable and is therefore unsuccessful in translating theirambition into actions.Organisations struggle with old ways of doing, based on ‘industrial paradigm’

Customer advocacy


Figure 3: Output — Outcome — Impact

Figure 4: An example of a dream and inspirational framework, of the different hats (roles) a customer facing employee can wear

Wuring


thinking. They analyse the ‘as is’ condition, define the ‘go to’ condition; translate it intoa roadmap from A to B and expect people to start running. There is no opportunity forpeople to internalise the goals, to create a platform that is meaningful, no ‘room forplay’; no space for people to feel what will make them and their contributionmeaningful in the ‘go to’ condition. Deadlines need to be met, milestones need to beachieved; that is where the energy goes and where the focus is. This approach is stillfeasible for the implementation of a new IT system. Generating customer advocacyrequires being di"erent, at an organisational, departmental and people level. Beingdi"erent requires seeing di"erently, thinking di"erently and doing di"erently in order tobecome di"erent. Changes need to be sustainable, experiences internally and externallyneed to be consistent. It is not processes or systems that are being changed. People aretransformed, asked to change what they feel, think, say and do. The focus should notonly be on departmental goals, but also on a boundary-crossing shared sense ofpurpose. Why is the company here? What is each individual role in this ‘playing field’,every personal contribution? What does each individual get out of it as a human being?A focus not only on e!ciency, but also on impact on people, at an emotional level;emotional perceptions of employees and customers. Connecting people, triggering theirownership, their personal commitment and passion, instead of compliance to formal andinformal goals and targets.Interactions between people, between employees and customers, are not only the

most important, but they are also the most vulnerable ‘points of failure or success’. Theauthor has worked with companies over the last six years on these transformationalprocesses and it always ends up with multi-disciplinary teams, including customer care(or service), marketing, sales, corporate communications, Human Resources andfinance and multi-level teams, involving people from ‘the work floor’ to the Board ofDirectors. That is how consistency and continuity between what is felt, said and donecomes to life; between ‘who you are’, ‘who you say you are’ and ‘who ‘‘people’’ say youare’.

THE DREAMInteractions between people are the ‘tipping point’ for a strategy driven by the desire togenerate customer advocacy. Customer care typically has the majority of these. Why dopeople choose to work in ‘customer care’? Usually because they like people, they like togive service and make people feel good. That is why they are hired. Alas, as soon as theyhave gone through their customer care training, they are programmed, no longer there asthe human beings they are, but as ‘human doing’s’, trained to follow procedures andprotocols. They focus on the operational key performance indicators (KPIs) that they aremeasured and managed by.A shared dream (Figure 4) invites and inspires people to dream, to take ownership, to

be committed and passionate. It invites employees to connect to their inner values, to whothey are as a human being to a company and a brand. It asks them to enter into ameaningful dialogue with customers, generating customer experiences that customers atan emotional level perceive as valuable to them as a human being. It invites them to makethe brand meaningful for themselves and the customers they serve, taking into accountthe prerequisites that the organisation sets, taking service to a game-changing level,creating emotional connections and commitment and generating advocacy, from themand the customers.3

Translating the dream into a framework of inspiring metaphors and icons (Figure 4)creates a meaningful environment o"ering all employees ‘freedom to be’ (freedom within

Customer advocacy


a framework) and ‘room for play’.4 Thus, they can authentically — as human beings —connect with customers at an emotional level in each and every customer interaction.One must be careful; it does require consistency and continuity, ‘walking the talk’ at all

levels.What might ‘creating experiences that are meaningful for customers’ look like in a

contact centre environment? One should think about the companies that one deals with asa consumer. Undoubtedly, there are companies that one likes to deal with and companiesthat one does not like to deal with. Why is that? Could it be the way they make a personfeel? For instance, someone does not like the prospect of calling their cable provider,because they know these interactions always end up being a nuisance, leaving them feelinggrumpy, whereas interactions with other companies are always a pleasure, leaving themwith a spark in their day. Emotional connections are created in both conditions. Whichcompany would a customer stay with and which one would be exchanged for anotherprovider as soon possible? Which one would be recommended to friends and which onewould friends be advised not to use?

A SAFE ENVIRONMENTIn his book A Whole New Mind,4 Daniel Pink describes the essence of being successful inbusiness in the 21st century as follows:

‘Being able to do something that overseas knowledge workers can’t do cheaper,computers can’t do faster, and satisfies one of the non-material, transcendent desires ofan abundant age. (. . .) We have moved from a society of farmers, to a society of factoryworkers, to a society of knowledge workers, to a society of creators & empathizers, ofpattern recognizers and meaning makers.’

Are customer-facing people creators and empathisers? Are they meaning makers forcustomers? Sadly, many people working on the customer-facing side of organisations arestill more deployed as a ‘human doing’, a ‘dehumanised robot’ managed at a task level.5

Which KPIs measure performance? Could it be service level, call duration, number of callsper hour, etc? What would one focus on in that condition? How much ‘space’ (freedom tobe) would bring more to the job than the capacity to ‘pick up the phone’? How much‘space’ (room for play) is needed to truly listen to and connect with customers?‘Human beings’, there to be creators, empathisers and meaning makers, can add value

at an emotional level for the customers they serve. Their performance is measured inquantity and quality; the two are balanced. They are not managed at a task level, but atthe balance between output, outcome and impact (Figure 3), not only doing things right,but also doing the right things in the perception of the customers they serve.One of the biggest challenges is to create an environment that feels safe enough for

people to start to transform from the human doing they always had to be, leaving 80 percent of their potential at the doors, executing the tasks assigned to them, to bringing theirfull potential as human beings to the job. To start serving customers in ways that makethem and the customers they serve feel good as a human being. Creating experiences thatare meaningful for customers. Creating an environment that is fulfilling for humanbeings, fun to work in and do business with.Training, procedures and protocols give employees the skills to do the job at a

functional level. But those are just the basics. To turn customer-facing employees into anasset on the company balance sheet, an environment has to be created where employeesare able to transcend the functional level, where they can add their own story to the

Wuring


brand, products and services, where employees can go beyond logic and engage emotionand intuition, where they can bring humour to business, products and services and givemeaning from whom they are as a ‘human being’.

GOVERNANCEOne gets what one measures. Constant measuring, controlling people in the old ways (the‘industrial paradigm’), keeping an eye on the quantitative KPIs, this is what will result;e!ciency without a heart, a business at risk to be outrun by competitors who do addmeaning. No inspirational framework can help. One has to keep one’s eye on the horizon(the dream) and the bottom-line and combine the two in the governance of theorganisation.Since Reichheld6 published his book, many companies have embraced the net promoter

score (NPS), thinking they have added the ultimate KPI to monitor customer loyalty. Inreality, they have added a KPI that is as meaningless as customer satisfaction if one doesnot know what is driving the score. Customer satisfaction shows if, in the perception ofthe customers, things are being done right. NPS shows if, in the perception of thecustomers, things are being done right, but neither KPI shows what is being done right,or not. NPS, like customer satisfaction, can only become meaningful if one identifies andresponds to the key drivers of both. But that is not enough. People in the operationshould be able to see the big picture. They need to be enabled to connect what they do ona day-to-day level to the results of the company. Awareness of their contribution to androle in the bigger picture impacts their ability to not only do things right, but also do theright things. To learn and to grow into doing what is right for the company and thecustomers they serve. One should think of an iceberg. NPS and customer satisfaction arejust the tip of the iceberg. If one does not identify and respond to what is below thesurface, it is pointless. It will not be possible to structurally impact either KPI. Inaddition, both KPIs are ‘moving targets’. Consumers are ‘educated’ by providers of otherproducts and services and competitors. Their demands shift all the time, getting moredistinguished. Does the organisation have the ability to adapt to their moving targets? Ifonly the two KPIs are measured, it does not.In addition, there is benchmarking. The customer loyalty monitors that compare across

an industry show a company’s performance in comparison with its competitors. Havematerial changes been seen over the last couple of years? It is probably a pretty flat line,minor changes, reflecting operational improvements, but are they significantimprovements, a trend that is significantly outperforming all competitors?The organisation needs to learn to:

. make the intangible (meaning for employees and customers) tangible;

. integrate quantitative and qualitative KPIs, not just from a company perspective(inside out), but also from an employee perspective (their engagement) and a customerperspective (outside in), adding their perceptions, learning what the bottom-line impactis of their perceptions;

. integrate output (operational e!ciency), outcome (e"ectiveness from an internalperspective) and impact (e"ectiveness from the customers’ perspective, creating gamechanging experiences);

. integrate KPIs across organisational boundaries, creating an overview acrossdepartments and silos;

. create an overview across organisational boundaries, facilitating border-crossingconnections and dialogue, aligning departmental goals and organisational goals,

Customer advocacy


creating synergy, focus and ownership of a shared goal, instead of isolateddepartments chasing their own goals.

The organisation needs to create a holistic governance framework that enables it toconnect performance areas that are often only visible at a departmental level, such as‘share of wallet’ (sales), ‘profitability’ (finance), ‘brand’ (marketing), ‘customers’(customer service) and ‘employees’ (Human Resources), so that people start to see thebigger picture and start to understand how the ‘softer’ side impacts the ‘hard’ side of thebusiness. To embed customer advocacy in the organisation and make it sustainable, onehas to make the correlation visible between behaviour (from employees and customers)and business results. It should be made tangible, measurable and manageable. One has tocreate visibility between border-crossing performance areas and create a sense for howthey correlate and impact each other (Figure 5).

RESULTSThe results of customer advocacy are multiple, multi-level and multi-disciplinary. Thefollowing are some results from UPC Broadband, with operations in ten Europeancountries, employing around 3,000 customer service representatives, serving around 12million customers:

. Turnaround of the reputation of the brand from worst to best in class.

. Operational e!ciency (in an already ‘operationally excellent’ organisation) structurallyincreased 20 per cent.

Figure 5: The customer advocacy monitor, an example of a dashboard that makes the correlation visible and measurable betweenbehaviour (from employees and customers) and business results

Wuring


. Sickness ratios and turnover decreased materially.

. Customer satisfaction increased 30 per cent.

. NPS increased 30 per cent.

. Churn decreased by 30 per cent.

. Share of wallet: the number of products increased with 1.5 product per customer.

. Sales by customer care increased over 200 per cent.

. Outperforming the market on new sales in saturated markets.

. Customer acquisition costs decreased 30 per cent.

Many examples of companies that owe their success to customer advocacy can befound in the online world, such as Zappos, Amazon, and Google. There are alsocompanies such as ING Direct, a Dutch bank that within ten years became the largestsavings bank in the USA, and Southwest Airlines, with steady growth and profits for 35years continuously.

TIMEThe biggest test will be one of time and patience. It takes time to create consistency andcontinuity between ‘who you are’, ‘who you say you are’ and ‘who ‘‘people’’ say you are’.Reputations are not built overnight. The time required depends on the current reputationof the company. The worse the reputation, the more time it will take. It takes a significantamount of time to change ‘who you are’, the DNA of a company. It takes time to buildtrust, to be consistent and prove to the (employees and the) customers time and againthat the company genuinely cares.

CONCLUSIONIn this age of abundance, with its saturated marketplaces flooded with commoditisedproducts and services, attractive as customer advocacy may sound to companies in searchof a sustainable competitive advantage, it is not a ‘quick fix’. Genuine care is aprerequisite to earn the trust of customers and, ultimately, maybe, generate theiradvocacy. Care is relational and conditional. One cannot write a protocol for it. It issomething that customers either feel or they do not. It takes time and self-trust ofcustomer-facing employees to ‘get it right’. It takes an environment that feels safe and ismeaningful to them, so that they can give care that is perceived as meaningful by thecustomers they serve. That is how customer experiences become ‘game changing’ andcustomers become emotionally connected to a brand.Initiatives to generate customer advocacy that are not solidly embedded in the way a

company operates are doomed, because customer advocacy, or the lack thereof, has atangible bottom-line impact.In the 21st century, consumers define and decide the fate of companies. Consumers

who feel tricked will create customer advocacy, but of the negative kind. Marketingexpertise is not the main competency required here, but ‘hands-on’ operational exper-tise. For everyone who works on the customer-facing side of an organisation, expertiseand involvement are required to manage service strategically and to lead the way forall their co-workers. Organisations that do not care lack a reason for being. Trust isabsent, on all levels, from employees to customers to market to society. Everyone hasexperienced where that leads, a financial-economic crisis of a magnitude neverexperienced before.In the 21st century, the success of a company can no longer be measured by its value on

the stock exchange, but by its heartbeat, its customer advocacy.

Customer advocacy


ACKNOWLEDGMENTThe author thanks Emma Vink for her contribution to the creation of this paper. Shegraduated in Critical Organization and Intervention Studies from the University ofHumanistics and works at Customer Management Services as a junior consultant.

REFERENCES1. Wuring, N.C. (2008) ‘Customer advocacy: When you care, people notice’, Booksurge,

Charleston, SC.2. Heidegger, M. (1927) ‘Sein und Zeit’, Max Niemeyer Verlag, Tubingen.3. Blanchard, K. and Glanz, B. (2010) ‘The simple truths of service: inspired by Johnny

the Bagger’, Simple Truth LLC, available at:www.stservicemovie.com (accessed 11thDecember, 2010).

4. Pink, D.H. (2005) ‘A whole new mind: Why right-brainers will rule the future’, pp. 47–50, Riverhead Books, New York.

5. TED (2009) Barry Schwartz: ‘On our loss of wisdom’, available at:http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/barry_schwartz_on_our_loss_of_wisdom.html (accessed 11th December,2010).

6. Reichheld, F. (2006) ‘The ultimate question: Driving good profits and true growth’,Harvard Business Press, Cambridge, MA.

Wuring


customer advocacy re-evaluating_the_concept_of_care_ nicolette_wuring

Business

rapidly gaining

sustainable

genuine care

company genuinely

generating

customer management

values made

customer satisfaction