Last summer, during a deserved break from my coaching activities, I decided to spend four days with my family at a beautiful resort on the west coast of Florida. The experience was “ok”, except for the speed of the checking-in and out processes, pool services and other services. In a nutshell, overall service was satisfactory but not memorable. If asked, I would relate to the resort that “I was a satisfied customer”.
However, would I stay at this resort in the future? Would I recommend the resort to my family and friends? The answers toboth these questions area resounding “no.” In conclusion, I was a “satisfied” customer but not a “loyal” customer.
According to Jeffrey Gitomer of Customer Satisfation is Worthless: Customer Loyalty is Priceless, “Satisfaction is not longer the acceptable measurement of Customer service success”. The Gallup Organization’s research also concludes that no matter how an organization thinks its customers are satisfied, if it hasn’t made an emotional connection with its customers to develop a long-term relationship, satisfaction will ultimately be worthless.
During my summer experience, there lacked an emotional connection with the resort, resulting in a loss of desire to return to the resort.
Great customer service is all about bringing customers back. And about sending them away happy – happy enough to pass positive feedback about your business along to others, who may then try the product or service you offer for themselves and in their turn become repeat customers.
Customers will come back and will bring family and friends to do business with you, if:
Here are some statistics:
What happens to angry customers?
If the problem was quite bad, they will tell stories about it for years and years to come.
“Who is typically to blame when you lose a customer?” Most customer service providers will answer that it is the customer’s fault! (and here is the scariest percentage) .. 99% of the time that customer service provider only needs to look in the mirror to see who is truly at fault!
From a scale of 1-10, how likely are your Customers to recommend your organization to someone else? If your answer is below 7 or you don’t know the answer, it is time to think about developing a Customer Loyalty Strategy to start creating the “emotion” not only on your External Customer but also on the Internal ones (employees).
If you want to learn more details about our Customer Loyalty Development Program and how valuable for your organization it might be, please review our website, call Pablo J. Perez at [phone link=”true”] or send an e-mail to pjperez@activategroupinc.com.
Reference and excerpts taken with permission from Customer Loyalty by Resource Associates Corporation.