The Apostle Model and Related Loyalty Segmentations

One of the most popular blog posts I've written was my introduction to the Apostle Model.  In the history of segmenting customers by loyalty, the Apostle Model was a groundbreaking typology.  Here's a rundown of some of its descendents:

• The Folk Apostle Model - This quadrant analysis represents a misunderstanding of the original and should be avoided.
• The Prisoner-Apostle Model - This segmentation is useful for qualitative analysis of service customers.
• The Revised Apostle Model - Sasser's revision to the original segmentation now includes word-of-mouth behavior.
• The Expanded Apostle Model - A revision I proposed to better segment customers by the type of positive and negative word of mouth they engage in (if any).
• An Apostle Model for Employee Loyalty - Walker Information independently developed a quadrant analysis for assessing employee loyalty which is analogous to the Apostle Model.  Given the correlation between employee loyalty and customer loyalty, this is helpful to keep in mind.

Finally, check out my post on best practices for using the Apostle Model, complete with a survey template.