The MAKE Better Customer Outcomes framework consists of the following key principles:
- Make the right promises
- Avoid empty promises
- Keep your promises
- Embrace broken promises
Empty promises are those which a business is unable to deliver consistently. The promises made may be right for the target customers but, for a variety of reasons, a firm may not be able to keep them reliably.
A firm must ask whether it is ready to keep its promises, and objectively assess or evaluate its ability to deliver them. It is unlikely that it will be able to consistently keep its customer promises if it puts the interests of other stakeholders ahead of customers.
A key benefit of avoiding empty promises is protecting customers from nasty surprises. A reputation of empty promises is likely to spread rapidly, accelerated by social media in particular, and could severely damage customer trust. In the worst-case scenario, empty promises may give the impression to customers that they were intentionally misled by the firm.