Inaccuracy when expressing a firm's value promise, presents Post-doctoral Researcher Kyllikki Taipale-Erävala, Oulu University, Kerttu Saalasti Institute
Marketing is very important for all companies. Especially, the marketing is important for SMEs, in which the marketing is a job among others within thin organization (O’Dwyer et al., 2009, Parry et al., 2012). Based on the entrepreneur interviews conducted in the Process-SME project, there seems to exist inaccuracy when expressing a firm’s value promise (or customer promise) for the customers. The firms are capable of marketing how they deliver their products and services, for example, ‘we are fast and always on schedule’, but they are unable to formulate how the use of a firm helps a customer’s life, advances business, or solves a problem.
The value promise (or customer promise) informs why your firm’s products or services are the best and suitable for the customer, and how the customer benefits from using your products/services. The perspective must be a customer’s point of view. As a practical example, I share you why a certain carpenter on this very moment is repairing windows in our house. He is handy, professional, and independently works on an agreed schedule. Those mentioned items are means how he delivers the service, but it is not the customer promise I am looking for. I know many handy and professional carpenters, so the common delivery means were not the crucial points. His reliability was one crucial point: we can give him house keys, and he works independently and considerately in our home. The main point why he works in our home is that after the renovation the windows will be easier to clean. His value promise (customer promise) is thus to simplify the housekeeping.
Formulating the value promise
As follows, there are some issues how to stand out from competitors. The value promise (customer promise) is a clause or a sentence, which clearly informs what you offer to the existing or future customers. A functional value promise (customer promise) often:
- clearly and concisely informs, what your enterprise offers, and how it solves a customer’s problem, or improves the current situation
- clearly informs, why the customers should purchase your products/services, not a competitors ones
- informs what the customer benefits from this all
As you maybe notice, we all use quite the same criteria when buying things. Therefore, I am positive that SMEs can easily clarify their customer promise by a little change in the standpoints.
