Sales & Marketing Management - January/Februry 2008 - (Page 12) MARKETING STRATEGY [By Kyle LaMalfa] PUTTING CUSTOMERS FIRST Nine surefire ways to increase brand loyalty “ C ustomers first.” It’s the mantra of businesses everywhere. Yet the average company still loses 10% to 15% of customers each year. Most of them leave due to poor service or a disappointing product experience, yet only 4% of them will tell you about it. And once they’ve left, it’s difficult (not to mention expensive) to get them back. Fostering true loyalty and engagement with customers starts at a basic level, but here are nine techniques you can employ to make customer loyalty a powerful competitive advantage for your company. They can be broken down into three categories: loyalty basics (one through four), loyalty technologies (five through seven) and loyalty measurement (eight and nine). source of ideas. To that end: s Establish channels (electronic, phone and written) to build engagement, one customer at a time. s Encourage customers to voice their thoughts. s Create metrics to improve response to concerns (i.e., “time to first response,” “time to resolution,” etc.). s Create metrics to measure loyalty before and after the problem. s Use technology to help you centralize the information, create reports and structure drill-downs. 1. Give customers what they expect. Knowing your customer’s expectations and making sure your product or service meets them is Business 101, yet often ignored. At the basic level, business needs to be a balanced transaction where someone pays for something and expects a fair trade in return. Expectations of product quality come from many sources, including previous quality levels set by your organization, what competitors are saying about you, and the media. Marketing and sales should work together to monitor customer expectations through feedback and surveys. 4. Build opportunities for repeat business. Give your customers a chance to be loyal by offering products for repeat business. Monitor what customers request most and offer products or services that compliment other purchases. In addition, exceed expectations by driving product development to offer more value for less cost. Use technology to track, classify and categorize open-ended feedback. 5. Engage customers in a two-way dialogue. An engaged customer is more than satisfied and more than loyal. They support you during both good and bad times because they believe what you have to offer is superior to others. Engagement takes your customer beyond passive loyalty to become an active participant and promoter of your product. Engaged customers will give you more feedback so you should be ready to handle it! All this translates into a customer who will spend more money with you over time. Accordingly: s Listen to customer feedback from comment cards, letters, phone calls and surveys. s Respond quickly and personally to concerns of high interest to your customers. s Organize unstructured feedback for tracking and trending over time. s Trust your customers to tell you what the problem is. s Use statistical techniques to www.salesandmarketing.com www.salesandmarketingmanagement.com 2. Go beyond simple reward programs. Points and rewards encourage repeat purchases, but don’t actually build loyalty. This is demonstrated by a drop in sales when the rewards are no longer offered. True loyalty comes when customers purchase products without being bribed. 3. Turn complaints into opportunities. Managing questions, comments and concerns benefits your business in two important ways. First, research indicates that an upset customer whose problem is addressed with swiftness and certainty can be turned into a highly loyal customer. Second, unstructured feedback, gathered and managed appropriately, can be a rich JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2008 12 SALES &MARKETING MANAGEMENT istock photo http://www.salesandmarketingmanagement.com
For optimal viewing of this digital publication, please enable JavaScript and then refresh the page. If you would like to try to load the digital publication without using Flash Player detection, please click here.