5 Rules of Customer Loyalty

Customer loyalty…does your company take it for granted? Everyone will say they don’t but in the end, most do. I am surprised how many times I hear executives say they are just trying to “get customers” or “make sales”. At the core, this is sacrificing long-term gains for short-term revenue. Countless times I have experienced sales and marketing professionals who are solely focused on growing the base with little to no thought of the existing clientele.

Business Zen: 

• The best marketing is marketing you do not have to pay for – customer promoters. 
• The best sales are the ones that happen organically – retention customers.

Is true, long-term customer loyalty a reality? Absolutely. Here are some guiding ideas to achieve such sales and marketing bliss:

When your customer is leaving is not the time to offer them “a deal”

You are calling someone because you are fed up with support, service, a product, whatever and you are quickly transferred to a “Customer Service Specialist” – which is business speak of Disaster Recovery Team. They are sorry, empathetic, and apologetic to the point you feel like you are watching a Hallmark Hall of Fame movie. In then end, they make you “the offer” to keep you as a customer. Really?!? Where was the offer when I was your customer for 5+ years? Why did I not proactively get the offer? Making such and offer is basically bribery by definition and insults the intelligence of your customer. Call them – contact them – make sure everything is ok before they get to the point of cancelling. Make them the offer out of the blue simply because you appreciate their business – not to save your bottom line when they are leaving. I have seen a lot of “Hail Mary’s” in football. They seldom ever work.

Customer satisfaction should not cost extra

One of my favorites…has this happened to you? You are trying to solve an issue and the representative says they can absolutely help you…but it will cost you $x.xx more. It is the post sale up-sale. In Vegas they call it a “string bet” and you will be taken out back and have your knees broken. If it is a service the customer did not buy then yes – the customer should pay for it. However,if something that went wrong or it's a service the customer did pay for – then fix it…at no charge. Remember you are not trying to get quick cash; you are trying to get customer loyalty. If the error was not the customers you should never charge them for YOUR mistake, design flaw, poor construction, etc. The best customer loyalty story starts and ends with, “I had and issue and they fixed it free of charge”.

Random act of kindness > futile act of desperation

This is essentially a summary of the above two rules. The morale is simple; do not wait until there is a problem before you reach out to your customer. Loyalty is tended like a garden. It needs to be watered, weeded, fertilized, and cared for. Pouring ten gallons of water on a brown/black plant will not bring it back. The same is true for your customers.

Customer Pre-Nups – ALWAYS a bad idea.

Prenuptial Agreements are now commonplace in Hollywood. To me a Prenuptial Agreement is a document that publically states I want money when (not if) our relationship falls apart. Imagine meeting someone at a coffee shop. You hit it off and they ask you out on a date – then immediately they shove a prenup in your face. “This is to ensure that I get some of your money should you ever become unhappy with me and want to leave.” As a person – you would never agree to that (full disclosure – if it is Kate Beckensale…then I would). In business, you do that all the time. Do you have a cell phone contract? Cable TV contract? Various other service contracts with a penalty clause? If you want to garner customer loyalty, love your customers unconditionally, and if you are unable to keep them happy, you need to let them go. I know that is very Love Guru Pitka – but it is the truth. Never force a customer into a prenup – they will reward you with their loyalty and business for years to come.

Follow the Golden Rule

Very simple – you learned this in kindergarten. Treat a customer like you want to be treated. You will be amazed at how much customer loyalty will flow your way.

In summary, when the business intelligence guys show up with their three dimensional Excel pivot tables showing that you can make an incremental 3% by doing any of the above…smile, give them a cookie, and ask them go back and calculate how many customers you need to lose versus that 3% before any of the above becomes a very bad idea. At the end of the day, we all know how Customer Loyalty needs / should / must work. We just need to have the courage to actually do it.