Developing Customer Loyalty

Every business person knows the value of customer loyalty. We have all heard the mantra that the customer is always right, but while this may be true it doesn’t mean you know all there is to know about them. Doing all you can to win the business of your customers isn’t the only thing you need to be doing to ensure they are loyal to you both now and in the future.

In order to develop customers who are loyal to us it is vital to understand what customer loyalty is all about. This might sound like we are stating the obvious, but in fact not everyone understands the difference between having loyal customers, and having customers who choose you over another company. The difference in the two parts of that sentence may not seem like much but it can translate into a big difference to your company’s profits.

To understand how to develop customer loyalty it is a good idea to think about how you use other businesses. Think about the ones you go to all the time. Why do you go there? Is it because it’s the cheapest? Is it the best? Does it offer the best customer service or are there perks to using that business that put it above all the others?

Loyalty is clearly not the same thing as having a long term customer, and to ensure you have the most loyal customers possible you must be able to distinguish between the two. Ideally you need to determine why people keep coming back to your business as opposed to going elsewhere.

Think about one of the businesses you frequent on a regular basis for example. If someone else came along and offered you that exact same service for less money, would you move over to them instead? If you would, that tells you all you need to know about how loyal you are to that first company. The length of time that someone uses a business and how loyal they are to it are two very different things.

To generate as many loyal customers as possible you need to develop a business that appeals to each customer as an individual, rather than as someone who adds to your profits. By shifting the focus of your business from money to serving your customer, you will automatically increase your revenue anyway, because everyone appreciates the extra level of personalised service that a business offers, which means they will often pay more for that service – even if a cheaper version comes along to rival it.

Each of these opportunities to provide that personalised service is an opportunity to make your customer say “wow”, no matter how large or small that reaction may be. In today’s experience economy, this focus on creating emotional responses to the service you deliver to your satisfied customer will turn them into an extremely satisfied return client who is at the same time an advocate for your business.

Positive emotional experiences create loyal clients!

Another by-product of this is that you will be able to access the best type of advertising available today – and that is word of mouth advertising. If people are delighted with the level of customer service they are getting from you, not only will they be loyal to you for a very long time, they will also talk about the service they get to other people.

The secret to achieving all this is to work on your overall team performance. Everyone has a chance to contribute to building a stronger business that encourages customer loyalty, and a team effort will bring better results all round.

Meeting Customers’ Needs

Philip Wexler said “If the goal of every business is to make money, then the function of every business – and of every person in every business – is the acquisition and maintenance of customers”. Therefore we can conclude that every company is successful in business depending on how well it serves its customers, and as such those customers should always be at the forefront of everything the business does. Unfortunately it can sometimes be the case that everyone assumes it’s everyone else’s responsibility to attend to the needs of the customer. The managers assume it’s the job of the front line employees, and the employees assume it’s the job of the managers who come up with the policies and ways of working in the first place.

In truth everyone is responsible for how well a business meets its customers’ needs, and a team effort is liable to boost the fortunes of a business even more successfully, since people tend to flock to those businesses which clearly pay attention to what they need and provide it to them as well.

The success or failure of a business depends on how well it rises to the challenge of meeting its customers’ needs, and to that end it should be understood that the process is a two way one. Your own view of how your business can serve its customers may be very different from the views and opinions your customers have, which is why you should take every opportunity to engage with your customers and ask their opinions of how you are performing – even if you don’t like some of the answers!

Part of the role of an effective leader is also to engage with everyone in the company, to spread the idea that you should all be looking for new ways to serve the customers even better than you do at present. It doesn’t matter if you are the best company in your field; if you don’t make the effort to stay on top of the pile you can bet that someone else will figure out how to serve those customers even better and you will be knocked off the top spot quicker than you might think possible.

Meeting those needs can be done in a variety of ways, but every method you use should always begin with a deep understanding of who your customer is. Without this understanding all the improvements you make will be based purely on guesswork, meaning that while some of your efforts will succeed, others could fail and represent a huge amount of time wasted.

Take the time to get in touch with your customer base and ask them what services they would like to see in the future. Perhaps you could provide an incentive to encourage more replies.

It is clear that if you want to continually meet the needs of your customers you need to be pro-active in discovering what those needs are and deciding the best way to meet them. This is something every employee can be involved in, from taking part in a simple ideas process to helping to implement a new way of working that could make a big difference to customer satisfaction.

There is always much to be learned in any business, and customer satisfaction is a big part of its continued success. Put simply, the business that creates the best “buying environment” for their customers, based on the satisfaction of their needs and wants, will win the most customers and turn them into repeat clients.

Good Customer Service

Good customer service is the backbone of any business. It permeates through every level of the organisation – from the dedicated customer service team, right through to the managers who deal with customer queries, albeit perhaps indirectly.

The term customer service relates to everything a company does to benefit the people they serve. Because the first port of call we make when something goes wrong is usually to the Customer Services department, we often assume that customer service is the process that exists merely to correct mistakes.

However this is very far from the truth. Customer service is behind every single action a business performs. After all, every business serves customers of one kind or another – whether it is people involved in other businesses, or the general public.

It’s important therefore to keep this in mind on a daily basis. Sales training is often beneficial at all levels of a business, to ensure that the rights skills are learned and used to keep customer service standards as high as possible. When conducted effectively, the Sales process is an integral part of providing outstanding customer service, rather than detracting from it as many people think. Sales training also helps to educate those who aren’t in direct contact with customers; appropriate training can often lead to a better understanding of the company as a whole, and the effect everyone’s actions have on the end result of a transaction.

Good customer service goes beyond doing the right thing, however. It can be a crucial part of developing a business to enjoy higher levels of success. Just as some companies stand out for delivering poor customer service, other companies can stand out just as much for ensuring their own customer service levels are as high as they can possibly be.

Customer advocacy, or referrals, respresent a direct spin off benefit of providing good customer service. And “Net Promoter Scores” (NPS) research conducted by Mark Ritson (Associate Professor of Marketing at Melbourne Business School) shows that these customer recommendations have a proven link to future business growth. Indeed, companies with high high NPS scores such as Bendigo Bank, Singapore Airlines, Aldi and HSBC are predicted to grow faster than their respective competitors whereas companies with low NPS scores were predicted to grow at a much slower rate than their competitors.

Being pro-active in providing outstanding customer service will ensure that your business not only enjoys less in the way of customer issues, but it also grows at a faster rate, because it is known for looking after its customers.

Telephone Etiquette

Effective communication is a vital part of the success or failure of any business, and while email is a popular way of keeping in touch, the trusty telephone still has an important role to play.

Unfortunately, unlike email, you cannot edit your comments or erase something inappropriate in favour of something better. Telephone calls are live, and there is no going back once you have said your piece.

This is why learning proper telephone etiquette can lead to better and more productive phone calls. Every telephone conversation is also a measure of how your business is perceived, so it’s important to make sure you give the right impression every time you pick up the receiver.

Some points to remember with telephone etiquette:

• Neither start nor finish a phone call too abruptly – allow the phone to ring at least once before answering so the caller knows they have connected (a good rule of thumb is to answer between the third and fifth ring) and always allow the caller to hang up first

• It is always important to be polite and speak clearly during each call. Bear in mind that the other person can only hear you, so choose your words and tone carefully to ensure you get the right message across (remember it’s not what you say, but how you say it)

• The right posture and your physical environment can have an impact on how you sound on the phone

• Jot down important points you want to mention on a notepad before you make an important call. This will ensure you don’t forget anything crucial, and the call serves the purpose you intended it to.

• You should never speak over the other person while they are talking. Always listen carefully to what is being said before replying, as you may miss something important if you try and butt in. Apart from that it is obviously bad manners and will reflect badly on you and your business.

• Politeness goes a long way on the phone. If you get caught out not knowing a crucial piece of information, take the caller’s details and offer to call them back when you have the correct information at hand.

• Use voice mail, and make sure your message corresponds with reality so change it regularly according to your situation. It is frustrating to leave a message for someone not knowing whether a message saying “I will call you back” means they can expect a call in 5 minutes (because you were in the rest room) or in 5 weeks (because you were in Europe).

• When calling someone, don’t say you need “a minute of their time” and then hold them up for 30 minutes – be honest so they can manage their time

• Remember that if you take the initiative to call someone, it is also easier for you to finish the call.

It takes confidence and experience to know how to use the phone effectively when calling others. All you need to get started is a willingness to learn and develop the skills you already have.

Customer Care

How do you take care of your customers? More to the point, how would you define that term?

Do you see it as taking care of things when they go wrong, to make sure that everything turns out right in the end? Or do you see it as the need to constantly perform actions – both large and small – on a daily basis, to ensure that the minimum of errors occur in the first place?

In truth, outstanding customer care covers both of these areas and many more besides. It is an ongoing task that every single team member can influence every time they present themselves for work. Even if some members of an organisation do not come directly into contact with the customer, they still have a bearing on the overall experience that a customer has.

Put simply, if the goal of the organisation is to make money, then the function of the organisation (and every person in it – whatever their level) is to actively work towards the acquisition and maintenance of customers. Without them, organisations could not exist and the money goes elsewhere.

If rules are made by people further up the chain of command which have a pronounced detrimental effect on the service received by customers, then the negative reaction from the customer will be most directly felt by the person they are dealing with. From there however, that team member will go to their superior with the problem at hand, and the issue will travel up the chain of command – perhaps to the very top.

Conversely, if rules and procedures are introduced which will actively facilitate front line staff in their delivery of superior service to customers, they will feel the positive effects from their customers helping to promote a positive work environment and good morale.

This is why the role of customer care is vital for every single person in an organisation to fully understand, as everyone can have a significant impact on it.

Good customer care should minimise the amount of errors that take place, which in turn frees up more time to improve the service that is being offered in the first place.

Communication and openness are essential to maintain within a business if good customer care is to continue over time. Everyone has a right to have input where customer care is concerned, and it is often the ideas of those who are most directly in touch with customers that accurately reveal where improvements could be made.

In short, outstanding customer care is a team effort – one that is ongoing and vital to the continued success of any business.