Customer Loyalty is Something Money Can’t Buy

December 18th, 2017 by

Is customer loyalty something that airlines can only buy with frequent flier miles? Or hotels with room stay points? The truth of the matter is it’s not about points or free gifts anymore; it’s about what money can’t buy.

customer loyalty

Loyalty today is not about price. It’s not about “free” anything.  It’s how you provide emotional value over monetary value, it’s about the “feelings” you create among the customers you serve. Feelings come from how you are treated, unexpectedly and expectedly.

No matter how big or small your business scope, or how large your customer database is, you can define and deploy strategies and experiences to create loyalty. Think big, think differently, and think about the “emotionally rewarding” value that your brand is uniquely set up to deliver — time and time again

Here are a few tips:

Build Your Data Capabilities

you need to communicate across all the channels your customers use: mail, phone, email, mobile and social. A wise old marketer once said talk about what matters to your customers, not just what matters to you. Then the wise new marketer reminds us to reach them the way they want to be reached. Append as much information as you can to your customer list.

Create Points of Engagement

keep the dialogue going – through blogs, surveys, contests – anything that people can answer, participate in and feel part of.

Reward Loyalty with Experiences

not just product. Consumers define a brand’s value to them by the experience and emotional value delivered more than anything else. Price can be met, but great customer service – not so much.

Say thank you and mean it

Remember your client’s birthdays, the names of their kids or dogs. Hand written notes, most often ignored by us emailers and fabulous typists, are a surprise and very welcomed. BTW – thank you Rocco’s Tacos for last month’s Birthday guacamole. Very much appreciated & enjoyed!

Examples of what makes for Customer Loyalty:

Southwest Airlines sticks out from its peers. The company does exceptionally well due to its ability to focus efforts on its two most important audiences — customers and employees. One notable example was when a Southwest Airlines passenger with cancer had their luggage misplaced — including the medication they needed for chemotherapy – and one of the airline’s employees drove to the passenger’s house to personally deliver the suitcase in the middle of the night. It’s clear that Southwest’s customer service goes above and beyond.

Disney Knows How to Do it

Last week we went up to Disney World with our daughter, her husband and 3 of our grandchildren. On the way up, I called thecustomer loyaltyDolphin hotel to let them know we would be there in a half-hour and asked to have our rooms close to each other. The rep said they would work on it and put a note in our file so when we get to the check-in desk they could handle our request. Fine, I thought, typical pass on to the next guy.

Five minutes later, the same Disney representative called me on my cell phone to verbally get my daughter’s approval that it was OK for them to honor my adjacent room request, explain that the room choices we had paid for wouldn’t work for adjacent rooms, got our OK to change our reservations, make the actual changes in the system and when we checked in, our rooms were right across the hall from each other, which was a perfect arrangement.

We go to Disney often and that level of customer service was unexpected.

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