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Let’s talk about businesses being loyal to their customers

It’s all about the intangibles–beginning with improving the customer experience.  According to research by Forrester, 72% of businesses say that improving the customer experience is their top priority.

Peace of mind.  Companies that earn customers’ trust and peace of mind also earn and their loyalty.  When customers trust your leadership and become captivated by your integrity, they will also trust your brand and be willing to pay a premium price for your products.

It’s all about the details when it comes to customer loyalty.

While customer loyalty should be observed throughout the year, April is designated as International Customer Loyalty Month.

Remember, you have to give the customer a reason to do business with you: your exceptional product, amazing service, your reputation for being considered an industry thought leader, or a combination of all of the above.

When you consistently demonstrate to clients why they should keep doing business with you, they will become loyal fans who will buy from you even if your price is higher than that of the competition.  By year 2020, service, NOT product or price, will be the determining factor for customer loyalty.

Doing what is right for your customer.  Empowering your staff.  Serving your community with humility.  These are three characteristics of an effective and likable leader.

Customers love when business leaders stand up for their principles and do what is right.

We recommend the following to attract and keep customers and clients:

* On social media, talk to your clients as you would in person.  You will appear less staid, stoic, uptight and disingenuous.

* Be careful with what you say and be careful with your tone.  A third of consumers say they experience rude customer service at least once a month; 58% of them tell their friends.

* When mistakes are made, be transparent; it indicates you conduct business with high ethics and integrity

No company says, “we are going to only do the bare minimum for the customer but we still expect to hit our profit margin” but yet, the behavior of some companies’ intentions seem to be just that.

Amazingly, 80% of companies report that they give excellent customer service but only 8% of consumers agree with them.

According to New Voice Media, businesses are losing $62 billion per year because of poor customer service; a $20 billion increase since 2013.

New Voice Media further states that only 12.2% of the Fortune 500 companies in 1955 were still on the list in 2014…88% of the companies have either merged, gone bankrupt or still exist but are not in the top Fortune 500.  Now, there are a number of factors that contributed to those companies no longer being listed on the Fortune 500 list including giving less than stellar customer experiences.

It’s time to dig deep, put pen to paper and come up with bright ideas.

One of the special (albeit sometimes annoying) things about children is that they ask “why”—about everything!  In their innocence, they ask questions to make sense of the world around them.  They have a natural curiosity about life; they want to form opinions about what they find fascinating or confusing.

Business leaders should KNOW their “why”.  They know WHAT they do and HOW they do it but they should ask themselves “WHY” am I in this business and WHY am I giving this level of service to my customers?”  The answers should go deeper than “to make more money”, “to get more customers” or “to crush my competition”.  Leaders must identify their purpose for the quality of customer care and experiences they deliver.