Where does advocacy collide?

The degree to which satisfied customers actively recommend and champion a brand to others, treated as the far end of the loyalty ladder beyond mere repeat purchase: an advocate does part of the firm's selling by word of mouth, and the willingness to recommend sits at the core of the Net Promoter question. Keiningham, Cooil, Andreassen, and Aksoy's 2007 A Longitudinal Examination of Net Promoter and Firm Revenue Growth tested whether that recommend-based metric predicts a firm's growth better than satisfaction or retention. The referent is a measured propensity of consumers to promote a brand, not a barrister's plea in court, an organized push on public policy, or a nurse's defense of a patient.[1]

Unit

A customer's propensity to recommend and champion a brand, as in the willingness-to-recommend metric

Recovery means

Advocacy can erode after a poor experience and be rebuilt through service recovery and renewed satisfaction

Measured by

Captured by survey items on willingness to recommend, such as the Net Promoter question, and by tracked word-of-mouth referrals

Organized effort to influence public policy and the allocation of public resources on behalf of a cause or constituency: interest groups, coalitions, and advocates press government to adopt or block particular measures. Sabatier's 1988 An advocacy coalition framework of policy change modeled how actors who share core beliefs align into competing advocacy coalitions that contend over a policy domain across a decade or more. The referent is collective political pressure to shape policy, not a barrister's courtroom plea, a brand's champions, or a nurse's defense of a patient.[2]

Unit

Organized pressure by a group or coalition to move public policy in a preferred direction

Recovery means

A defeated cause can revive as coalitions realign and external events reopen the policy agenda

Measured by

Traced through coalition membership, lobbying activity, testimony and campaigns, and shifts in the policies actually adopted

Acting to protect and promote the rights, interests, and wellbeing of a vulnerable individual within a care or service system: the nurse or social worker speaks and intervenes for a patient or client who cannot fully secure their own interests, and fosters the person's own self-advocacy. Bu and Jezewski's 2007 Developing a mid-range theory of patient advocacy through concept analysis synthesized the nursing literature into three core attributes: safeguarding autonomy, acting on behalf of patients, and championing social justice. The referent is protective intervention for one person inside a system, not a courtroom plea, a brand's champions, or a coalition's push on public policy.[3]

Unit

An advocate's action to protect and promote a vulnerable person's rights and interests within a system

Recovery means

Not applicable

Measured by

Identified through the advocate's actions safeguarding autonomy, acting on the patient's behalf, and upholding rights, as set out in concept analyses of the role