Most of the customers who mattered to me started on the bottom rung. In 1994, when we put stock quotes on the web with NETworth, some people who understood markets dismissed it. The web was a toy, they said. Serious investors would never trust a browser. By the time Intuit called, about a hundred financial institutions used NETworth, including Schwab, Vanguard and 20th Century, now American Century. None of them got there in one step. They climbed.
I teach this with a ladder. Every customer starts as a cynic. They do not believe you. With facts, you can make them a skeptic, someone willing to listen. With performance and a clear value proposition, they become a prospect. With a good experience, they become a buyer. And if you delight them, they become an apostle, someone who tells everyone they know.
- Cynic
- Does not believe you. Facts move them.
- Skeptic
- Willing to listen. Performance and a clear value proposition move them.
- Prospect
- Sees the value. A good experience moves them.
- Buyer
- Has bought. Delight moves them.
- Apostle
- Tells everyone they know.
NETworth, one rung at a time.
Facts came first. Mutual fund companies had to deliver a prospectus to investors, and the SEC did not allow one to be delivered electronically. Together with Vanguard and Fidelity, our little company went to the SEC for no-action relief. By October 1995 the SEC had issued formal guidance recognizing electronic delivery. A cynic can argue with a pitch. It is harder to argue with a ruling.
The buyer rung was personal. Every time we signed a client, especially in finance, I mailed them a big box. Inside was a copy of Atlas Shrugged, the book I had named the company after, with an inscription thanking them for coming on board. That was how we said welcome.
Then an apostle found us. The Mosaic team at NCSA, behind one of the first web browsers, called to say they loved NETworth and wanted to put it in the browser’s drop-down menu. I approved it on the spot. When Microsoft licensed the Mosaic code for Internet Explorer, the menu came with it. Early Internet Explorer pointed to NETworth. That was distribution we could never have bought.
Apostles are a kind of infrastructure too. They carry your brand into rooms you will never enter.
The gulf between satisfied customers and completely satisfied customers can swallow a business.
Satisfied is not the top rung.
Thomas Jones and Earl Sasser made a version of this point in Harvard Business Review in 1995. Satisfied customers still leave. At Xerox, totally satisfied customers were six times more likely to buy again than merely satisfied ones. They even used the word apostle for the most valuable loyalist.
Geoffrey Moore called the phase after the tornado Main Street. Growth slows. The fight is no longer about grabbing new customers as fast as you can. It is about keeping the ones you have and making them come back. A company that wins Main Street keeps its apostles for decades. Apostles do your marketing for you.
Climb the apostle ladder.
- Pick one real customerWrite where they sit today: cynic, skeptic, prospect, buyer or apostle.
- Score the gapWrite what they expected from you last time and what you delivered. That gap is your delight score.
- Move them one rungMatch the move to the rung: facts, performance, experience or delight.
- Protect next yearWrite one way you will avoid the delight trap with them next year.
Quick answers.
What is the customer apostle ladder?
Rob Frasca’s ladder has five rungs: cynic, skeptic, prospect, buyer and apostle. Facts make a cynic a skeptic, performance and a clear value proposition make a prospect, a good experience makes a buyer, and delight makes an apostle who tells everyone they know.
What is an example of a customer apostle?
Rob Frasca points to NETworth, his first company’s stock quote service. The Mosaic browser team loved it and put it in the browser’s menu, and when Microsoft licensed Mosaic for Internet Explorer, early Internet Explorer pointed to NETworth: distribution he says the company could never have bought.
Sources.
- Rob Frasca, The Creator’s Journey (forthcoming), Chapter XI, Building What Lasts.
- Thomas O. Jones and W. Earl Sasser Jr., “Why Satisfied Customers Defect,” Harvard Business Review, November/December 1995. Source
- Geoffrey A. Moore, Inside the Tornado (HarperBusiness, 1995). Source for Main Street.