The document discusses turning customer advocacy on its head by viewing the brand or company as an advocate for the customer rather than just focusing on customers referring other customers. It suggests measuring advocacy through a survey question asking customers the extent to which they agree the company cares about them and not just the bottom line. Research shows a positive relationship between customer loyalty and agreement with this advocacy question. The document calls for companies to first correlate advocacy levels to specific customer service attributes to determine where investing to improve loyalty would have the highest return, and second to investigate customers who disagree with the advocacy question to identify those at risk of dissatisfaction or defection.

1. Kinesis CEM, LLC
https://blog.kinesis-cem.com/2014/03/31/turning-customer-advocacy-on-it-head/
Eric Larse is co-founder of Seattle-based Kinesis, which helps companies plan and execute their customer experience strategies.
Mr. Larse can be reached at elarse@kinesis-cem.com.
http://www.kinesis-cem.com
kinesis-cem.com 206.285.2900 info@kinesis-cem.com
Turning Customer Advocacy
on Its Head

2. Referring Friends,
Relatives, and
ColleaguesDominate Notion
of Customer
Advocacy
Not Very
Customer Centric

3. The Brand as
Advocate of the
Customer
A More
Customer
Centric Notion

4. “To what extent do
you agree with the
following statement:
We care about you,
not just the bottom
line.”
Measure Advocacy
With The Following
Survey Question:

5. Research shows a
positive relationship
between loyalty and
agreement with this
advocacy question.
Advocacy as
Measure of
Loyalty

6. How Can We
Act on This?
Call to Action

7. Correlate advocacy
question to a battery of
service attributes, to
determine which ones
have highest ROI
potential in terms of
customer loyalty.
First

8. Investigate cases
where agreement to
this question is low
to identify customers
at risk.
Second