Advice on Loyalty

Now more than ever, you need to earn customer loyality. It can pay off in repeat business and positive word of mouth resulting in a stronger business for you.

In case you missed what I wrote about the value of a single customer, just click here.

Also check out this article:

Welcome to this week's business insight by Shep Hyken.
This week's insight is titled: On Customer Loyalty

Customer loyalty is everything. The function of our business is to get and keep the customers. Statistics show that it is much more expensive to get a new customer than to keep an old one. Not only does it cost more in dollars, it takes much more time to keep coming up with new customers.

Some products or services don't lend themselves to customer loyalty with frequent buys. In that case customer loyalty comes in the form of customers recommending you, your products and services.

So, here is an important point to add to the concept of customer loyalty. No matter how good you are and how long you have had the customer, you are only as good as your last contact. Not even the last time they bought from you or your company - but the last contact.

That last contact could be a phone call, an invoice, a thank you note, a promotional brochure, etc. And here is another idea. Most people think of loyalty as life long. You've heard the expression, "A customer for life!" If we really do a great job, we may get a customer for life.

But, wouldn't it be easier to break down this goal into more manageable parts. Why not focus on a much shorter time frame. Depending on what you and your company sells the goal may be six months, a year, maybe five years.

The first goal should be to the customer to buy from you a second time. The second goal is to get them to buy a third time. Once they show a pattern that starts to resemble loyalty, then you can focus on longer goals.

However, never lose sight that each time a customer buys is the link in the chain of events and/or transactions that leads to your longer term goals. And the chain is only as strong as it's weakest link.

Copyright (c) 2004- Shep Hyken, Shepard Presentations Shep Hyken, CSP is a professional speaker and author who works with organizations who want to build loyal relationships with their customers and employees. For more information on Shep's speaking programs, books and tapes contact (314)692-2200 or mailto:shep@hyken.com. (http://www.hyken.com/) Shepard Presentations, LLC 711 Old Ballas Road, Suite 215 St. Louis, MO 63141

Sphere: Related Content