Business Chart: Why marketers should have more authority in their company

MarketingSherpa surveyed 1,200 consumers and asked them to name a company they were satisfied with. We also surveyed 1,200 consumers and asked them to name a company they were unsatisfied with.

We then asked several questions about the customers’ experience with and perception of that company, including…

How well do you feel [company name] prioritizes your needs as a customer against its own business goals?

To see 35 more charts from the study, download the free report.

Satisfied customers are more likely to view the entire brand as a customer-first business

In previous articles, we shared data showing that customer-first marketing was a key differentiator between satisfied and unsatisfied customers.

Beyond just marketing, satisfied customers are significantly more likely to view the entire brand as a customer-first business. Three-quarters of satisfied customers said they were “always a priority” or a “high priority” compared to the company’s business goals, while only 13% of unsatisfied customers said the same.

On the other end of the spectrum, the difference between satisfied and unsatisfied customers was even more extreme. Two-thirds of unsatisfied customers said they were a “low priority” or “not a priority” compared to a company’s business goals, while only 4% of satisfied customers answered the same way.

This data shouldn’t shock you, but it should empower you to think beyond “marketing.”

Marketing beyond the marketing department

“Businesses that truly make their marketing about their customers benefit from the approach, and it can’t be understated how much value both sides get when marketing focuses on the customer first. Acquisition costs go down; referrals go up; and satisfaction in the form of metrics such as NPS (Net Promoter Score) increase,” Zak Barron, Director of Partner Programs, GetResponse, told me when I asked him his thoughts about the above data.

“This is an approach that needs to go beyond marketing in an organization. Marketers who are successful in sharing this approach in all facets of a business will benefit from long-term satisfied customers. The way marketers collaborate with product development, sales, finance and customer service to deliver a customer-first approach can make an enormous perceived impact when it comes to customer attitudes toward the brand.”

This raises the question — so what is marketing anyway? A quick Google search defines marketing as “the action or business of promoting and selling products or services, including market research and advertising.” But I’d like to expand that definition just a bit.

Marketing is anything that impacts the customer

After all, the customer doesn’t make any distinction in his mind about internal corporate departmental divisions, reporting structures or business activities. The customer simply has experiences with a company and then makes a conclusion about that company.

Sure, those experiences with the company can come from a print advertisement or an email newsletter. But, they can just as easily come from product packaging, customer service, or an article in the newspaper about a company’s polluting or green business practices.

Accentuate the positive, eliminate the negative

So, think about ways you can use your marketing skills and tools to reaffirm and spread positive customer experiences in a way that benefits your customers. “Loyalty programs, customer appreciation campaigns and referral campaigns are more successful using a customer-first approach to marketing,” Barron advises.

But expand your view of marketing as well and use the above data as a proof point to get involved in as many customer touchpoints as you can — especially those not traditionally considered “marketing.”

When I asked Barron about the data, he provided a nice B2B and B2C example of how marketers can help companies improve customer touchpoints, “In SaaS this can be, for example, not offering support lines or chats open during bank holidays, when customers also use the service and need instant support and can’t get it. In other cases, let’s look at what happened with United — this terrible level of customer service and humiliation is making people all over the world think twice about choosing United for their next flight…any negative service given to one customer is an indication of how — possibly — a new one can be treated by the company.”

Related resources

Beyond Advertising: Creating Value Through all Email and Mobile Touchpoints – Free webinar with Catharine Hays, Executive Director, Wharton Future of Advertising Program (May 3, 2017, 2:00 – 2:45 PM EDT)

United's Mistake: It Put the Customer Last (by Thorin McGee in Target Marketing)

The Radical Idea: Outsourcing that touches the customer is penny wise, but pound foolish