Hello!
You're receiving this because you signed up for my newsletter, which if you're scratching your head wondering how and when you did, I wouldn't blame you, as I haven't written to my list for months! Eek!
So a refresher quickly – I'm Scott (obviously), author of The Shape of Engagement, and writing about all things engagement. Or, as my inner Ron Burgundy says:
Ok, I'm not quite as good as that, but do have a fair few books at home, as I imagine most people reading this do!
Anyhoo – you are here possibly because you heard me speak at a conference, or saw an article or heard a podcast online, read my book, or downloaded my engagement frameworks. For whichever way you made your way onto this list, I'm grateful.
And to my old friends who haven't heard from me for months, I apologise. I have been travelling quite intensely, and to be honest, have procrastinated on any new writing. However, at the urging of my good friend Adrian Swinscoe, the nudging of my friend Patrick Knight, and the inspiration of Professor Victoria Hurth, I've got a writing spark string in my soul, so let's go!
***
Today I want to talk about commitment.
I mention Patrick and Victoria above as both of them have guided me to the academic literature on engagement. Google Scholar is my new best friend (although, if there is a non-Google version of this, let me know, as I don't like using Google), and I'm currently going through papers like a gerbil eats through cardboard.
What has been excellent to discover – and I'll be frank about this as I might as well be – is that I'm very glad to find the academic literature proposes the same conclusions as my frameworks. In fact, the alignment between them is quite precise, which is greatly encouraging.
One of the topics of discussion within the literature on engagement is of course commitment. This is no surprise: engagement is near synonymous with commitment, and can't happen without it. With commitment we are talking about matters such as loyalty, exclusivity, and the behaviours that happen because of it.
But what is fascinating is that in the literature there is not one but two two types of commitment that are talked about, fleshed out most excellent in Jana Bowen's paper, The process of customer engagement: a conceptual framework.
The first type of commitment is calculative commitment. This is when someone makes a commitment, say to a preferred brand, based on what they calculate to be advantageous to them. This will be calculated on factors such as price, quality and convenience.
This calculative commitment leads to loyalty, like choosing the preferred brand over another, but only as long as the cost-benefit calculation stays in line. The moment a better priced, better quality, more convenient offering is available, the commitment shifts, or is at least disloyal in the moment.
Such a commitment is thoroughly rational, and easily dislodged when the rationale is broken, such as in the case of a bad customer experience, or as we've said above, when a more rational offering is available. As one writer puts it, in this case, "depth of loyalty is no deeper than mere performance." Ouch!!! Your last experience with a customer could well be your last experience!
Bowen therefore rightfully asserts that "management should be cautious of customer relationships that are solely based on calculative commitment."
But... there is a second level of commitment.
Affective commitment is where the customer makes a commitment no longer on a sole rational basis but on an emotional one. It is when a customer not only prefers a brand but is emotionally attached to it, to the point of going out of their way to maintain their loyalty even in the face of seemingly better calculative offerings.
It is affective commitment that lays the ground for strong emotional bonds that drive behaviour such as high degrees of loyalty, increased transactions and higher spending per transaction, and strong word of mouth advocacy. (In an employee engagement context, this would be high levels of discretionary effort, high retention / loyalty, greater productivity, etc.)
And, and Ilke the way Fleming and Asplund put it in HumanSigma, when a customer has affective commitment towards your brand, then “the number of potential alternatives they’d consider using is zero." Boom. That's what we want!!!
***
What struck me so significantly when reading this was that it fits precisely with the models of engagement that I have developed, specifically Shape #6 from my book, the X Marks the Spot model.
In this model I lay out the six psychological levels of engagement that an agent and object of engagement go through, whether it's person-to-person, or person-to-brand, or person-to-employer, or person-to-idea – basically, any relationship you can think of, even person-to-film or even person-to-furniture. Here it is:
What you can see is how a person's relationship to the agent that is seeking to engage them is at first rational, but then becomes emotional. Likewise, Bowden points out in her paper that "the initial development of calculative commitment is merely the beginning of a transitioning sequence that if further developed and fostered, may lead to more affective and hence more enduring states of commitment."
That's exactly what I'm saying! Engagement starts as rational, and becomes emotional the higher it gets, and when we have an emotional connection, like we do with a friend, we aren't worried if they are late or hurt us in someway because our friendship transcends those things. Likewise, a customer that is emotionally connected to a brand actually doesn't mind a failing in service like the way a rationally engaged person would, because their emotional connection transcends those more rational factors. Talk about the ultimate prophylactic for keeping customers!
So what is to be done?
First, we should recognise that loyalty is deceptive unless tied with signs of affective commitment. A loyalty card in the wallet is no sign of a loyal customer: but a badge of that brand that is pinned on their jacket is. The first is calculative commitment, and highly temporal, the second, affective commitment.
Next, we should appreciate that calculative commitment is where we start, but it isn't where we finish. Put another way, don't just win your customer's (or employees', or community's) minds, go on to win their hearts.
Finally, plot a path to affective commitment – which means crossing over that pinpoint of the X in the middle, which I describe more fully in Shapes #1, #3, #6 and #7 in my book. Perhaps I can write about that process next week?
Right, I'm going to hop off here because I'm about to go on vacation but let me say it's been great to talk with you again. Feel free to kick my butt if I don't write again next week!
Yours engagingly,
— Scott
P.S. Just because I love you, and you've got to the end, I'm giving you a freebie – Shape 6 of my book, which is the X Marks the Spot model, is yours for free right here.
P.P.S. If you want the whole book, you can buy it here.
P.P.P.S If you want to read some more papers on commitment within customer engagement, check out:
- Bowen (2007) The process of customer engagement: a conceptual framework
- Gambetti and Graffigna (2012) The grounded theory approach to consumer-brand engagement
- Roxenhall and Andrésen (2012) Affective, calculative and normative commitment: An assessment of relationship
- Sashi (2012) Customer engagement, buyer-seller relationships, and social media