How would you feel if, someone you have known for long and trust, all the sudden tells you “Show me your money!!!”.

Do not worry, this is not about robberies and criminality but about Marketing. The latter exemplifies one of the core messages that most companies (you name them) are conveying to their customers, no matter how good they are. But before jumping into it, let me give start sharing you the context around this.

One of the best exercises that a marketer can do is to observe and speak openly with his customers. The latter goes far beyond traditional market research, where we get quick insights about Brand Perception or reactions from a focus group about how good (or bad) a product it; it also goes beyond quantitative research done by third parties, or statistics from the panel of a well known research company. It implies a face to face converstation (not monologue) with customers and letting them speak spontaneously and in depth about what sort of messages do they get from our companies, how satisfied they really are, what is moving them and what sort of value do they ultimately get from our companies.

Seems to be obvious. This is what we all learn at Marketing Fundamentals and what we all assume we should be doing. However, I can assure you that this is not the case for many companies, end up suffering the CUSTOMER GAP. I would define the Customer Gap as the distance we have with our customers, a measure of the degree of disconnection we have with them. So that the bigger the wedge, the bigger the disconnection, the bigger the Customer Gap will be.

Many companies claim that their Customer Gap is zero or irrelevant. According to them they are communicating continuously with their customers. But the reality is far from here: They are not communicating, they are throwing away messages to their customer base, with no space for real interaction (even if they open a web site or other similar channel through which their customers can express themselves). In other words, theirs is a kind of monologue, with no chance for the conversation being given.

The results of the Customer Gap are quite predictable: The higher the Customer Gap, the higher the risk of generating customer dissatisfaction, losing loyalty, decreasing net promoters and eventually compromising all the company long term growth.

So, you will agree with me, we need to overcome it and decrease it and implement kpis and mechanisms that help us signal where we are going. On of those would be what I mentioned before: Implement real conversations with a representative sample of customer where we get where we really are and what we are really passing on. Wait and see; you will be amazed to find for instance that your messaging is completely distorted. That when you say for instance “Welcome on board to our loyalty program” the customer might be understanding a “Show me your money!”, for you are requiring his credit card details and will charge him for any new service, trial or new product you have launched.

All companies are at stake. Even great managed ones like Apple and Amazon seem to be increasing significantly their Customer Gap, and enter into the “Show me the money!!!” destroying wave when milking their customers with service platforms like Kindle or iTunes. How come, you would say? Not sure about the answer; guess that the pressure to attain short term results exerts more influence that long term ones…

Having said that, let me finish with one straight question that only you can answer: WHAT IS YOUR CUSTOMER GAP?

THINK DIFFERENT!!!

Ignacio Gafo