We all understand the term ‘KPI’, Key Performance Indicator. It is always used as a term to describe internal performance metrics.
Our customers employ us to deliver value, a solution to their problems, a means to deliver some sort of gratification. Yet, we use as performance measures things that are of importance to us, usually irrelevant to customers. Sales revenue, margins, share of wallet, customer churn, inventory turn, factory efficiencies, and so on.
How many of your customers give a toss about your factory efficiencies or sales revenue? The reason they came to you is that you made them a promise, sometimes unspoken via your brand, sometimes explicit via your advertising.
Perhaps the KPI metric should be reversed to ‘Kept Promise Index’.
The promises we make have no positive weight unless they are kept, then they carry weight. When promises are not kept, they also carry weight, far greater than when they are kept, but it is negative weight.
In my experience, a promise not kept is remembered, commented upon, often generating disproportionate anger and frustration to be vented somewhere, usually these days on social media.
Last week my internet service went down without notice for 16 hours, as always, right in the middle of a research project. I will remember that, and act on it, whereas for probably 99.9% of the time, the service is there, uninterrupted, at my demand, but that is the promise, so I will not necessarily remember that 99.9%, it is simply expected.
However, when the promise is made explicit, and it comes with a guarantee, it can become a huge marketing benefit. For example, if I was a plumber servicing domestic markets, I would explicitly make two promises: turn up when promised, and leave the work site cleaner when we leave than it was when we arrived, or there is no charge.
I think there would be a premium price in that, as it is a guarantee of a promise to be kept!
How many of your KPI’s would your customers care about?
Header cartoon courtesy Scott Adams and ‘Dilbert’
