Can't get no loyal consumer
Customer satisfaction is at an all-time high. Customer loyalty is at an all-time low. Why?
Simple satisfied customers will shop anywhere. Satisfaction is not any indication that the customer will repeat a purchase. As a consumer, you have often been satisfied, and never returned to that place of business.
A more complicated reason is that business is just now discovering that satisfaction is no longer the measure of customer success loyalty is.
What is a loyal customer? One who will create positive word-of-mouth advertising about you, refer other people to do business with you, and fight before they switch from you to a competitor.
Well, Jeffrey, how do you make customers loyal to you? Is it low price? No, the moment someone offers a lower price, the customer becomes "loyal" to that lowest price. There's more to loyalty than money. Money is usually the bait used to lure loyal customers from their present supplier. The lower the loyalty, the more they'll take the bait.
Loyalty occurs if you're first on the mind of the customer when they want what you sell a satisfied customer is the last to tell you they decided to buy someplace else. Loyal first to know, satisfied last to know. Hmmm.
Loyalty is best understood when related to the word "fan." When you go to a college, or grow up in a city, you are a loyal fan of their sporting teams. Fan is short for fanatic. How many fanatic customers do you have?
Sports loyalty is when you love one team and hate their arch rival (their main competition). Who loves you?
To make it even more complicated, loyalty is not a one action event. If it were, everyone would go out and do it. Loyalty evolves like loyalty to a spouse or friend. It matures (or dissolves) over time, based on your deeds, actions and words.
So how do you get customers (people) to be loyal to you or your business? Since loyalty doesn't just "happen," the answer is a question what are the elements that breed loyalty? Here are a few:
Being unusual. Changing the boring stuff you do everyday to wow the customer and create an atmosphere where the customer "has to" tell others how great it was. Fax cover sheet, voicemail, phone greeting, invoices. Standard stuff you change to set the new standard.
Getting business for your customers and prospects. If you want to build loyalty beyond belief just start getting your customers hot leads and prospects. Now when you call your customers they won't know if you're buying or selling.
Giving your customers and prospects valuable information to help build their business. Your customers want answers, not always more of your product. If you want customers forever, become a valuable resource they can't live without.
Give proactive service. Calling customers to tell them they need service or supplies just before they were about to call you. Letting them know when the "deals" are coming up. Doing something so memorable for them that they call others and tell them about you.
Service way beyond the sale. Offering product-use tips and information that help your customers build their business or achieve their goals.
Give the best service they've ever had. Having great service is at the heart of the loyalty process. Service that starts with "yes" provides solutions and ends with "Wow!"
Friendly service. How important is friendly? Ask yourself where you love to do business, and I'll bet everyone there is friendly. Your customers want the same from you.
Answering the phone and helping in a memorable way. How do you feel automated phone answering sits with customers? How do you like it? Does it breed or erode loyalty? Saving money by not having someone human greet your customers is the 21st century's single best example of "penny wise, dollar foolish." Customers call for one reason they want help. Why give them the hell of the computer?
Give something they'll use every day and show to others. Delivering an ad specialty that's so unique, they show or tell others. The difference between a coffee mug that sits in a drawer and one that's shown to everyone is about $2. If it's shown to 20 other people that's just $0.10 per "Wow!"
Going beyond the expected. They expect a delivery fee set it up for free. They expect two-week delivery get it to them the next day.
Being fun, unusual, creative, and poignant. Being human in the world of business can set you apart more than you know. Become likable, and people will want to do business with you.
Loyalty is the most difficult of the customer service goals to achieve. But once you have it, you have something your competition will never have the next order.
Jeffrey Gitomer is the author of "The Sales Bible," and "Customer Satisfaction is Worthless, Customer Loyalty is Priceless." President of North Carolina-based Buy Gitomer, he gives seminars, runs annual sales meetings, and conducts training programs on selling and customer service. He can be reached at salesman@gitomer.com
