NBOP National Board of Operations Professionals

Part two. The ExpectationLesson 8 of 14

From awareness to advocacy

The stages after purchase are as distinct as the ones before, and are usually unowned.

The instrument The post-purchase stages

0:55. Captions on by default. Everything said here is also written on this page, so nothing is only in the video.

Read the transcript

Organizations map the buying journey in fine detail and then treat everything after the sale as one undifferentiated state called customer. The stages after purchase are just as distinct. Onboarded: they can use it. Activated: they have used it for the thing they bought it for, at least once. Habituated: using it is no longer a decision. Dependent: stopping would cost them something real. Advocating: they have told somebody else. Each transition has a different failure mode. Onboarded to activated fails on time and complexity. Activated to habituated fails on frequency. Dependent to advocating usually fails because nobody asked. Knowing the stage tells you the next action. Measure it behaviourally. Ask people how they feel and you get sentiment. Watch what they do and you get stage.

Organizations map the buying journey in fine detail and then treat everything after the sale as one undifferentiated state called customer. The stages after purchase are just as distinct and have just as different needs.

Onboarded: they can use it. Activated: they have used it for the thing they bought it for, at least once. Habituated: using it is no longer a decision. Dependent: stopping would cost them something real. Advocating: they have told somebody else.

Each transition has a different failure mode and a different intervention. Onboarded to activated fails on time and complexity. Activated to habituated fails on frequency. Habituated to dependent fails when the product never becomes load bearing. Dependent to advocating usually fails because nobody asked.

The operational value is in knowing which stage each account is at, because it tells you what the next action is. An account stuck between onboarded and activated four months in does not need a relationship call, it needs the specific obstacle removed.

The measurement is behavioral rather than attitudinal: a defined action per stage, observable in data you already hold. Ask people how they feel and you get sentiment. Watch what they do and you get stage.

Two things worth doing, neither of which costs anything

One Help decide what a competent operator is expected to know The eight domains carry equal provisional weighting until practicing operators say what the work actually is. Takes about eight minutes. Two Check whether you are eligible About a minute. No account, no email field, and nothing you enter is kept.

Read the standard in full, free and in the open, before you pay anything or give anyone an address.