Marketing and Sales Guru

Any company can satisfy a customer. Doing the minimal and exerting minimal effort can result in a satisfied customer, but in order to create a loyal customer, something more needs to happen. The entire sale experience needs to be different. It starts with the company, though, and regardless of how a customer acts, the company’s reaction is what makes or breaks the success of the customer’s experience.

Customers who become advocates/evangelists for your brand/company are indispensable; you cannot pay a customer to be an evangelist; they have to become one on their own. You can, however, help to encourage them to become one.  How do you do that? Well, you could:

1. Put yourself in their shoes. How would you want to be treated? How would you like your problem dealt with? Try to emulate that through your service offered.
2. Treat them with respect. Just like #1, how would you want to be treated? Avoid demeaning the customer, and talk to them with empathy, understanding, and with a solution in sight. Even if you’re unable to offer a solution right them, let them know that you’re working on one and that you’re doing something.
3. Go above and beyond. If you don’t normally offer something like what they’re asking for, but you’re able, do so! This can also change things and make the customer more apt to come to you again.
4. Offer something others don’t. Do your competitors offer a refund? No? Then offer one yourselves. Do they offer solutions for unhappy customers? Try doing that if they don’t. Doing something more, offering something more, can make your customers feel special and appreciated.
5. Make the buying (and returning) process painless. Customers have been through a maze of choices, emotions, and decision making once they get to the purchasing stage, so try to make the POS (point of sale) painless and easy. Avoid stipulations, too many options at the end, and be clear about your policies and set the right expectations for their ownership of your product. Setting the right expectations can help to decrease issues in the future, and being clear can help to lower confusion and anger.

Overall, the above things are all efforts to WOW your customer. It’s easy to make them thankful for your service, but to offer them something that they are more than pleased with, feel the need to share with others, and do share with others, is what sets companies apart from one another. A product is easy to duplicate, and any company can replicate the process of another, but to offer excellent customer service, that can’t be faked.

Customers get angry for one reason: their expectations were not met. Whether that be a product not working the way they expected, a sale not being there, or a price being different, a customer can get angry for many reasons that are not the fault of the company. This can make the job of the customer service representative a tough one. Making sure that you set the right expectations clearly and loudly can make the process easier, so be sure to be up-front and clear. If you think you’ve been clear, turn it up a bit and be even more clear.

So, how are you treating your customers? Are you turning them into evangelists?

Consider some of the major brand short falls that have taken place lately. Do you still see Tiger Woods as a great golf player? Do you still think Toyota makes a great vehicle? Brand loyalty is a hard thing to break. Reason being: customers don’t want to be told their convictions are incorrect, and they usually stick their ground, regardless of being right or wrong. We confirm our beliefs whenever possible, and we ignore the conflicting information for as long as we can.

What is brand loyalty?

Brand loyalty, in marketing, consists of a consumer’s commitment to repurchase or otherwise continue using the brand and can be demonstrated by repeated buying of a product or service or other positive behaviors such as word of mouth advocacy.

Brand loyalty is more than simple repurchasing, however. Customers may repurchase a brand due to situational constraints (such as vendor lock-in), a lack of viable alternatives, or out of convenience. Such loyalty is referred to as “spurious loyalty”. True brand loyalty exists when customers have a high relative attitude toward the brand which is then exhibited through repurchase behavior. This type of loyalty can be a great asset to the firm: customers are willing to pay higher prices, they may cost less to serve, and can bring new customers to the firm. (source)

Why does brand loyalty keep people coming back?

People who liked Toyota before their recent recalls (and Tiger before his recent personal life story being shared with the world) probably haven’t changed their minds much. Just like in an election, people make up their minds and stick with that decision regardless of the facts. Conversely, people who didn’t like Toyota (for whatever reason) are now running with the recent story telling everyone they were right all along; the facts don’t matter for either person.

For example, if I bought a Toyota years ago and had the best experience imaginable, I would be pretty happy with Toyota. Then, I buy one of the unfortunate vehicles that needed a recall. I may be upset, but I would defend that decision I made to the end, up until I got my recalled car back. I wouldn’t even disown Toyota. (For the people who are not loyal to Toyota, their story is a very different one.) To reiterate again: loyalty is a hard intangible to break. Additionally, brand loyalty is a hard thing to buy. It usually can’t be bought, which is a good thing for companies who don’t have a large amount of money set aside for buying loyalty, but it also means that all companies have to try harder to grab part of the customer’s mindshare.

How do you foster loyalty?

1. Give consumers a cause. People love fighting for something, like Mac fans who have come to hate PCs because of the “cause” they adopted from Apple.
2. Give them reason to be loyal. This can be through great customer service, great products, or great price. Pick one area though, and focus on that.
3. Be consistent.
4. Be available.
5. Be responsive.
6. Be transparent in your PR activities.
7. React and respond quickly.

Pierce Mattie gives this interpretation of brand loyalty:

I’d like to think that brand loyalty is brought about not only because your mom wore the same brand of makeup your entire childhood or your dad wore the same brand of suits each day to the office, but because that brand offered something of value to you–quality, effectiveness and good ole customer service.