Are marketers so ill-informed?

It should not take a report by Datamonitor to inform marketers of the link between customer service and customer loyalty (MW December 5, 2002). Common sense tells us all we need to know on the subject.

The problem is that too much marketing activity is not based on common sense. The Holy Grail of marketing is creative campaign execution. It is the overriding, all encompassing concern of nearly every marketer. And this is the problem.

Most marketers are so obsessed with making brand promises that they rarely, if ever, give any concern as to how they might be kept. Ensuring goods are delivered on time, that they are stocked and restocked in the right way by informed staff is not seen as an irrelevance – it is not seen at all. The same applies to many service providers.

But this is not how consumers see marketing. They are more concerned with fulfilment of brand promise than the promise itself. They accept or reject the propositions made by marketing communication but are frequently betrayed at the point of purchase.

Of course motivating and educating staff and those of third parties pales against the option of creative brainstorming. It will never be able to compete against the appeal of coming up with the next big idea. But, it should not take a detailed report to tell us that good service makes brands most successful.

Stephen Humphreys

Managing director

Projectlink

Teddington, Middlesex