Mind the gap: Why what a brand promises and what it delivers matter

Organisations make promises to consumers every day. But these promises do not exist in isolation. They are influenced by, for example, social media feeds, conversations with friends, and, of course, our own experiences of interacting with that brand. This combination sets a benchmark in consumers’ minds against which each new or repeat experience of a brand is measured. Each new experience in turn recalibrates that expectation before the next one.

But how often is the experience failing to match this ‘influenced promise’? And, perhaps more importantly for Customer Experience practitioners, what happens when there is a mismatch between promise and experience?

We already know from previous research that a brand’s ability to meet its customer needs is directly linked to the emotional connections its customers have with it. Meanwhile, in papers such as ‘Get Fair or Fail: Why Fairness is Key to Business Success’, Ipsos found that fair treatment (or lack thereof) is a key predictor of churn, particularly when things go wrong. Logically then, we can see that misalignment of promise and experience can impact the bottom line of a business. 

In this new whitepaper, Fiona Moss explores the promise-experience gap, the benefits of aligning the two and the pitfalls of over-promising.