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A vendor's brand and image influences SMBs' perceived customer satisfaction and loyalty. Brand measurement relative to the competition provides a snapshot of current positioning and illustrates how the vendor can improve its market image and influence SMBs' perceived satisfaction.

After prioritizing each customer touchpoint, making relevant competitive comparisons and analyzing current brand image, vendors must create thorough documentation, process improvement goals and metrics to focus on the strongest drivers of increased SMB loyalty and satisfaction. Without a process-oriented approach to eradicate errors from each relevant customer touchpoint, all the data in the world will not help a vendor make the improvements needed to increase customer satisfaction and loyalty.
Value

By understanding the drivers of SMB loyalty and customer satisfaction, vendors and service providers will increase the lifetime value and lower churn of SMB customers. In addition, loyal SMBs are more likely to share their positive experiences with other SMBs at key decision-making times. For SMBs making purchase decisions, advice from other SMBs is their number-one information resource—beating out trade magazines, sales channel information and technical magazines.

The drive to maintain competitive differentiation is heightened in a world of increasingly similar technology products and services. A process-based, customer-satisfaction-oriented vendor has a long-term advantage over the competition—an advantage that is extremely difficult to replicate. A vendor's highly loyal SMB customers create a formidable obstacle to competitive attacks, especially when reinforced by an effective brand.