Conversion Model
What is the Conversion Model™ and where does it come from?
It is a market research tool that measures psychological attachment. It is generally used to measure commitment to brands but can be used to measure most forms of relationships.
The Conversion Model™ was initially developed to understand religious conversion. The first commercial study conducted using the Conversion Model was in 1989 in South Africa and in the United States in 1990. The Conversion Model™ was the first model to introduce the concept of commitment to marketing. The model makes use of Catastrophe Theory, a branch of Chaos Theory mathematics.
Why measure commitment?
Measuring behavioural loyalty is not enough to understand brand health. Loyalty refers to what people do – it refers to the likelihood of repurchase based on past behaviour. Commitment, on the other hand, is about how people feel – it refers to the likelihood of repurchase based on what’s in the customer’s mind. Just because a person is loyal – buying the brand again and again – does not mean that they are committed. But committed customers are loyal. They need less persuading to repurchase the brand, they are more resistant to competitive claims and they are more willing to pay a premium price.
But what about customer satisfaction? Being satisfied is just one part of what makes a person committed and it is not enough to measure customer satisfaction alone. The reason is simple. If we look at consumer behaviour, satisfied customers sometimes defect and dissatisfied customers sometimes don’t. In other words, customer satisfaction alone cannot accurately predict how customers are likely to behave in the future. Commitment, and understanding how customers are thinking and feeling, helps to improve prediction of future behaviour.