What makes consumer choose one airline over another or one mortgage provider over its rivals?
Our research shows that your reaction to a brand depends on your experience of buying, using or owning it and not just on advertising. The most important part of that experience is often your personal interaction with people. This is an area that most companies do not understand or invest enough in.
Take airlines. Satisfaction with cabin crew contributes more to people choosing the same airline again than other factors.
Why do companies not spend more on their people when there are clear benefits? Here are two common reasons.
It's too expensive
Many organisations know that people matter. But they don't invest in this area because they think it is a luxury they cannot afford. And it is true that some role model' such as the Four Seasons hotel group or Virgin Atlantic Upper Class, would be too expensive for most to copy.
But there are smart, affordable solutions that create a lot of brand value out of only a little customer interaction. First Direct earns the highest level of customer recommendation of any UK bank through just the telephone contact with its customer.
Customers at QVC, the market-leading television shopping channel, value their interaction with the station's people in this case not the call center staff who take the shopping orders, so much as the relationship that viewers believe they have with QVS's onscreen presenters.