Welcome to the Listening Post!

Expanded Apostle Model

Tweet

 

I confess to some disappointment with the Apostle Model:

First, the Apostle Model doesn't really measure Word of Mouth, yet it is known as the Apostle Model - to me, apostles go out and evangelize your customers:  not only are they highly satisfied and highly loyal but they are highly communicative, creating widespread word of mouth for your brand.

The Revised Apostle Model doesn't really address this to my satisfaction.  To correct this, I've toyed with adding communicativeness as a third dimension. 

High Communicativeness

Low to Medium Communicativeness

This expands the segmentation from four groups to eight:

• Apostle - high loyalty, high satisfaction, high communicativeness - evangelizing others 
• Hostage - high loyalty, low to medium satisfaction, high communicativeness - "unable to switch; trapped"
• Mercenary - low to medium loyalty, high satisfaction, high communicativeness - available to another brand if the price is right; will let others know they've switched
• Terrorist - low to medium loyalty, low to medium satisfaction, high communicativeness - spreading misery
• Loyalist - high loyalty, high satisfaction, low to medium communicativeness - "staying and supportive"
• Prisoner - high loyalty, low to medium satisfaction, low to medium communicativeness - "unable to switch; trapped"
• Miser - low to medium loyalty, high satisfaction, low to medium communicativeness - switch to another brand if the price is right
• Defector  - low to medium loyalty, low to medium satisfaction, low to medium communicativeness - "leaving or having left and unhappy"

What's interesting about this expanded segmentation is that it provides a richer set of word-of-mouth behavior, and indicates how many negative opportunities there are for word of mouth:

• The Apostle loves your brand and is eager to convince others to buy from you.
• The Mercenary is great when they switch to your brand, as they will tell others about what a good value you are.  But they will do the same thing when they switch to a cheaper brand in the future.
• The Hostage is miserable as your customer and wants everyone to know it. The fact that they can't switch, or feel they can't switch, only makes them that much more talkative.  You're stuck with them and their viral negativity.
• The Terrorist hates your brand, is leaving it or has left it, and wants the world to know.

Update: This post is part of the series The Apostle Model and Related Loyalty Segmentations.