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Even though today’s consumers have a wealth of brands to choose from and opportunities to shop around, brand loyalty does still exist. It’s just harder to earn.
With comparison tools and competitor sites only a click away, companies today must be more attentive and reliable than ever. They must demonstrate a clear and consistent commitment to their customers in order to stand out among the competition.
How do they achieve this? Developing a strong customer promise is a good place to start.
What is a customer promise?
A customer promise is a demonstration, both in writing and in action, of a company’s commitments to its customers.
It blends together the company’s overarching, philosophical approach to customer service and the practical, tangible ways in which the company meets customer needs and expectations.
A customer promise clearly articulates what customers can expect in their interactions with the company, at each stage of the customer journey. It defines and enhances the customer-company relationship, taking it beyond a purely transactional agreement to a connection rooted in value, trust, and accountability.
The importance of a customer promise in retail
Developing, communicating, and enacting a strong customer promise is especially important in the retail industry, a highly competitive space where consumers are inundated with thousands of lookalike brands all fighting for attention and loyalty.
A strong customer promise will allow you to rise above the noise. It will differentiate your retail brand from competitors and foster a loyal customer base that passes on its loyalty from generation to generation.
When you look at the world’s most beloved and long-lasting retail brands, they all consistently align their messaging with tangible, customer-facing actions. They take care to ensure that slogans and tag lines translate into real-world experiences for their customers, across all touchpoints.
For example, Nike’s mission “to bring inspiration and innovation to every athlete in the world” and its slogan “just do it” are carried out with actions that consistently reflect these values and expectations.
Its commitment to providing pro-quality products to athletes of all kinds, both amateur and professional, is demonstrated in everything from inclusive sizing options and hands-free adaptable footwear to its community sports initiatives and Paralympic sponsorships.
Patagonia is another retail brand associated with a strong customer promise. The outdoor clothing and accessories company doesn’t keep its core values of quality and sustainability at arm's length. It translates these principles to customers through initiatives like using ethically sourced materials and offering a lifetime guarantee to replace damaged products or repair them at an affordable price.
Customers have a clear understanding of what they’re getting from their relationship with the brand, both in terms of practical product quality and the broader mission to which they’re contributing.
Benefits of having a strong customer promise
Delivering on your customer promise will allow your business to:
- Meet and exceed customer expectations
Consistently fulfilling your customer promise establishes your company as reliable—an organisation that customers can count on to deliver products and services as advertised. This leads to high customer satisfaction, word-of-mouth referrals, and repeat business.
- Distinguish your brand from competitors
A well-defined customer promise, maintained and upheld, reminds customers of your unique value. It inspires customers to choose you over companies that offer similar products and services but without the same care and respect for their customers.
- Establish long-lasting customer loyalty
When you place the customer experience at the heart of your operations and prove that you’re as good as your word—you’re as good as your slogan, your ads, and your mission statement—you foster trust and loyalty to your brand. Customers take pride in purchasing from you over competitors, and they very often pass on this loyalty to the next generation.
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How can you develop your customer promise?
Developing your customer promise is a five-step process.
1. Get to know your customers
Although a customer promise should seamlessly align with your company’s loftier mission and values, it cannot be conceived without first considering the customers themselves. Who are they? What are they looking for? What problem are you helping solve for them?
It’s vital to do your research. Understanding your customers, both at a demographic and psychological level will allow you to develop a customer promise based on empathy—one that actually addresses their wants and needs.
For example, if your typical customer is extremely busy and values efficiency above all else, that value must be baked into your customer promise through clear initiatives like streamlined checkout processes, next-day delivery, and easy returns.
However, if your typical customer is most concerned with quality and product longevity, robust product guarantees and warranties should be at the forefront of your promise to them.
2. Analyse all areas of your business
Every department has a role to play in helping develop your customer promise. Work together, across disciplines, to better understand your customers at the different stages of their customer journeys.
You may be surprised at how much insight even non-customer-facing departments have to contribute to the process.
For example, your finance team may highlight trends that indicate a growing demand for digital payment methods. Similarly, your logistics team might identify ways to streamline the order fulfilment process or offer more reliable product shipping.
Listening to and collaborating with different teams will allow you to develop a well-informed customer promise that aligns with the reality of on-the-ground operations.
3. Figure out what makes you unique
As you develop your customer promise, work to zero in on the unique way in which your company will deliver it, particularly as it compares with your competitors.
This differentiation is what will take your customer promise from generic to compelling. It’s what will allow you to stand out among brands with similar products and services and foster loyalty for your company over others.
For example, if offering a personalised shopping experience is a part of your customer promise, develop and emphasise tangible initiatives that provide this (e.g. proprietary personal shopper technology, free in-store stylist consultations, etc).
Or, for example, if you want product quality to be at the forefront of your customer promise, be specific about how you ensure and maintain this, such as through robust quality control measures or special, high-grade materials.
Even if you and your competitors are offering similar benefits to customers, identify the ways in which you’re doing it differently or better. If you aren’t able to find enough areas of differentiation, then you must develop some in order to create a compelling reason for customers to choose your company over others.
4. Communicate clearly
A customer promise is only as good as the way in which it’s communicated. If it’s not clearly articulated to customers across all touchpoints, it’s essentially meaningless.
To ensure you’re communicating your customer promise effectively, focus on simplicity and repetition. Use simple language to lay out your core commitments whenever and wherever possible—in everything from mission statements to order confirmation emails to product packaging to advertisements.
Stay away from jargon, internal messaging, and lengthy prose. Instead, simply reiterate your customer promise in words a 10-year-old would understand.
Enacting your customer promise
1. Be consistent
In order to be successful, a customer promise must be carried out consistently across all customer touchpoints.
Achieving this requires you to look closely at all areas of your business—from product development to branding to marketing to sales to order fulfilment to customer service—and make sure that the customer promise is reflected and upheld.
It’s vital to work across all departments to ensure that all new initiatives and communications are filtered through the lens of your customer promise. You must also continually seek feedback from customers to ensure that you’re actually delivering on your commitments.
2. Adapt while staying true to your promise
Although the core values behind your customer promise should remain solid, it’s essential to evolve with your industry and as your customers’ needs and expectations change.
Be careful not to confuse consistency with rigidity. Having an unwavering commitment to your customers isn’t about being resistant to change. Instead, you must adapt in ways that align with your customer promise.
For example, if part of your customer promise is to offer 24/7 customer service, but you only do so through one, offline channel (e.g. telephone), then you’re failing to keep up with modern expectations.
As customer service technology and trends change, so must you. Your commitment to offering round-the-clock customer service support can stay the same, but adding digital channels, like web chat and email, is essential to keeping up with modern demands.
3. Never forget the human element
An excellent customer promise must reflect the humanity behind the numbers. Never forget that your customers are human beings, with unique experiences and emotions.
Remember that there’s no one-size-fits-all solution to customer service and that the best-loved companies build flexibility into their approach, understanding that different customers may require different forms of support and communication.
Factor this human component into the way you deliver your customer promise. This might mean empathy training for customer-facing teams, offering custom or personalised options for products and services, or ensuring that customers can connect to a real person for support when they need it.
A mindset of customer-centricity
When you look at the most successful companies across the globe, it’s clear that nearly all of them place the customer at the centre of their operations.
The customer is the foundation from which all else is built. Amazon, for example, talks of its “customer obsession” and Apple promises “to bring the best user experience to customers.” But these companies haven’t risen to the top on words alone.
They have earned customer loyalty by consistently communicating and delivering on their promises.
It’s a good reminder that, if you want to build and grow a loyal customer base, there’s no replacement for empathetic and accountable customer service.
Beyond words alone, a company promise must also be demonstrated through daily interactions with customers. Following through on written promises with actions is crucial to building trust and credibility.
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