Hard Won, Easily Lost…
I’m talking here about customer loyalty. Loyalty is what brings our customers back for more; it’s what inspires them to recommend our product or service above others to their friends. It’s what keeps the money coming in.
Michael Heppell, a coach whom I follow, takes the view that inconsistency is the enemy of loyalty; never were truer words spoken. When first-time customers get something delivered or done in a certain way, they automatically assume that it will be delivered or done the same way every time thereafter. One has only to look at customer reviews of products or service to see plenty of examples of people who experienced great delivery the first time and were let down subsequently.
It works both ways, we may experience fantastic delivery the first time, and terrible the next, whilst someone else had a terrible experience the first time and never goes back for more.
One of our most difficult jobs as leaders is to make sure that our organisation delivers the same quality every time. As most of us employ human beings, this is no easy task. People get sick, sleep badly, have arguments with colleagues, get injured – all of which can affect the quality of their work. Add to this pressure of meeting deadlines whilst following rules that are not always easy to understand and being the face of the business to its customers, and something MUST eventual go wrong.
Heppell draws examples from everyday events such as:
- Shops which spend huge amounts on refurbishment, but next to nothing on training staff;
- Companies paying PR agencies to help them win awards, but which couldn’t win a public vote;
- Transport companies where good service is a lottery.
One area where we can make a start is to ensure that promise is matched (or even exceeded) by delivery. For this, we need to make sure that the training, tools and environment all support delivery of a consistent delivery. There’s no point in having great premises, highly-trained staff and great computer software if the organisation’s procedures hamper everything. The aviation industry has discovered that 80-90% or errors are down to management. This is normally because different apartments (sales, operations, customer service, HR, IT, finance) often have conflicting goals and priorities.
People come to work wanting to do their best, and it’s up to us as leaders to make sure they can if we want to keep that precious customer loyalty (and our business running).
Why do we want loyal customers? Loyal customers:
- Buy more (and more often);
- Are more forgiving when we make a mistake;
- Recommend our business to others;
- Won’t desert our business for a competitor as fast (what I call the the “sticky factor”).
This is worth fighting and training for. People say that customers have no loyalty. I prefer to say that we shouldn't be giving them reasons to leave.
I have spent more than half my life delivering change in different world markets from the most developed to “emerging” economies. With more than 20 years in international financial services around the world running different operations and lending businesses, I started my own Consultancy to provide solutions for improving performance, productivity and risk management. I work with individuals, small businesses, charities, quoted companies and academic institutions across the world. An international speaker, trainer, author and fund-raiser, I can be contacted by email. My websiteprovides a full picture of my portfolio of services. For strategic questions that you should be asking yourself, follow me at @wkm610.
Labels: Customer Care, Leadership, Selling, Strategy, Teamwork
posted by William Martin @ 09:42
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