How do define the Satisfaction Lifecycle?

Now let’s examine what happens when buyers and sellers meet.

The value creation activities of the seller and the customer’s responses to brand storytelling converge in a process that we call a satisfaction lifecycle.

Satisfaction Lifecycle

The figure above depicts the satisfaction lifecycle model as a way to analyze promotional activities and discover where brand managers need to add resources to fill holes, not to mention where they may be spending less money than necessary to draw customers (and other stakeholders) into trusted relationships with the brand and into communities of practice and referral.

The satisfaction lifecycle integrates seller and buyer perspectives in terms of development stages, customer comments, and key events. Let’s examine these development stages in greater detail, using our ongoing research of customers and vendors in the emerging market category for media asset management solutions.

We illustrate the satisfaction lifecycle with a business-to-business (B2B) example, but individual consumers go through this process as well. As you read through the following discussion and B2B example, imagine a consumer going through the process of purchasing a new automobile.

Development Stages of the Satisfaction Lifecycle
Sellers and buyers move through a satisfaction lifecycle in several development stages.
Most buyers start lost in the fog. They may not even know they have a problem or to what extent the problem has grown important enough to address. They do experience symptoms and issues, typically interpreting them in psychological or fuzzy terms—a complaint that doesn’t suggest a practical solution. At this stage, customers typically ask, “What’s the problem here?”

For example, graphic designers and publishing specialists complain that they spend too much time trying to find images, photographs, and other elements that they need to complete their job. They also complain that the items they do find do not lend themselves to easy reuse—they have to spend too much time fixing or modifying them.

Enter the seller—in this example, a database company—in the market creation stage of the satisfaction lifecycle. In this stage, a vendor suspects that it has a product or service that might help this frustrated potential buyer. But because the buyer doesn’t yet understand the real problem, the vendor has to put in place programs to educate the buyer about the nature of the problem and an infrastructure to deliver solutions—market creation.

In our example, after studying the situation, the database company realizes that its technology can meet the emerging need for media or digital asset management solutions. The company marshals its internal resources to meet this new customer need, with training for in-house and field sales, technical support, and instructions about how to respond to customer needs. The company creates brochures, presentations, customer testimonials, and other collateral pieces that orient, educate, and reassure the potential buyer that her complaints represent a legitimate business problem: the systematic creation and reuse of reusable media and the automation of workflows throughout that publishing activity.

This stage concludes when the buyer has successfully identified the underlying need and can state, “We need to fix this problem now.” Marketing managers must understand that this statement usually represents the consensus of a decision influence team. Using our example, the decision influence team now understands that it has a business problem (how much money and time the company wastes, and the likely dire consequence of not optimizing this vital business function) that it now must solve with a media asset management system.

Buyers now move into the decision-making stage where they begin to research the category. They examine potential solution scenarios, locate providers for these solutions, and conduct a more formal study of the business case, an investment analysis that justifies a purchase decision.

In the case of our digital asset management (DAM) system, a task force at the buyer firm will conduct an audit of their workflow practices, often with the help of a consultant, with the intent of identifying bottlenecks and problem areas that a DAM system will address. They also develop a short list of a dozen or so vendors and issue a request for information to narrow the field to a handful of qualified companies they will invite to answer a request for proposal (RFP).

On the seller side, the solution provider enters the sales cycle. It marshals its field marketing and sales resources to help the customer reach a decision that, the company hopes, will specify its solution. The database company in our example will direct its media specialist team to work the customer in all appropriate ways. The team may help the buyer firm benchmark its media asset workflow, conduct a system performance analysis, identify needs for software and hardware upgrades, and cost the DAM solution against a calendar of milestones. This stage ends when the buyer states, “We have decided to use Vendor A,” and makes a purchase.

Buyers now move into a learning curve. They remain switchable customers—they have purchased a solution and begun to deploy it, but they will still keep their options open, examining other possible solutions as fallback strategies. The buyer firm might even discover it doesn’t have the necessary focus or resources and put the whole thing off until later.

Continuing our example, the DAM solution buyer will organize a deployment team that installs the software, often for a scaled-down production pilot system (a solution for one workgroup), trains the digital librarian and end users, and fixes whatever problems arise. The buyer firm wants to see the pony run around the track before they buy the whole stable. They will continue to look at possible fallback strategies—another DAM vendor or an outsourced solution.

The seller has moved into the post-sales support stage. They execute the project plan, hitting their milestones. This includes addressing all of the normal startup issues, providing user training and support, and reassuring managers that they have made the right choice.

This stage ends when end users and managers at the buyer firm can say, “At last! This thing works.” They have begun to see payback—tangible results.

Buyers now move into the enhancement/optimization stage. They begin to weave the solution into the fabric of their business process. The loyalty lock-in begins and they make a commitment to this solution. In our DAM example, the company now relies on this system. It has moved tens of thousands of media asset files into the system and has meticulously indexed them using a keyword authority list. Likewise, it has re-engineered workflows to take advantage of the DAM system.

On the seller side, the solution provider moves into account management mode. It addresses shortcomings, fixes bugs, and suggests (and sells) upgrades and add-on modules. It offers extras and special favors if the satisfied customer will provide testimonials and let the seller use them in other sales and marketing efforts.

In our DAM example, the seller has consolidated its control of the account, forming effective alliances with IT staff, business management, and end users at the buyer firm. The account manager may become a de facto process consultant and change agent, helping management at the buyer firm to optimize the overall business, in the process moving the buyer to a more complete rollout of the DAM solution throughout the firm.

This stage ends when buyers can state, “If we could do it all over again, we’d do so in a heartbeat.” The buyer firm has reached full use of the solution. It has received a full return on investment and begins to reap substantial dividends.

The buyer firm now moves into the evangelism stage. In our example, the leader of the DAM implementation team has probably received a couple of promotions and in the process has thoroughly documented the business case for the total solution that has now yielded a manifold return on investment. As she discusses her experience, her colleagues at other firms now recognize her as a subject matter expert—a maven—in the DAM category. Word gets around. Technical conferences seek her out as a keynote speaker, a role model for others to follow. She likes the attention, the opportunity to travel and meet other successful pioneers like herself, and recognizes that the exposure opens up broader and more lucrative career horizons. She becomes an evangelist for the category and an advocate for a particular solution and a methodology (a set of best practices) that produce consistently great results.

On the sell side, the vendor enters into the innovation partnering stage. In the DAM category, vendors work with buyer firms to promote the solution throughout the value chain as an industry standard. Vendors and buyers work together to develop next-generation solutions.

This stage ends when buyers can say, “Let me show you how to rule the world,” and advocate both the category and the branded solution.

Earlier, we saw how brand managers can use cycle time to measure the effectiveness of the value creation process. Here, they can apply the cycle time concept to how quickly they move with buyers through the satisfaction lifecycle. Shorter cycle times produce higher sales productivity (higher revenues per sales representative), lower cost of sales (lower customer acquisition costs), and faster consolidation of category dominance. What can brand managers do to accelerate a buyer’s movement through the satisfaction lifecycle?