There are better ways to win Loyal Customers.
Reason 1 – Your delighted customers are still important, but are they valuable? The Ritz Carlton is notorious for great service and customer experience and there is a story that’s gone viral epitomizing just that: a family staying at a Florida Ritz checks out and their young son leaves his beloved Giraffe stuffed animal behind. The hotel staff goes above and beyond for the family and not only are they super thankful, the story went viral and we how great the Ritz is. So is it worth it? And how would this apply to you?
Here’s the thing; unless you run a nationally recognized hotel chain (or even if you do) this stuff isn’t necessarily worth your or your staff’s time. This is a one off example, and yes there are plenty of these examples out there – take that 10 hour customer service call with a Zappos rep – but the statistics don’t lie: a customer’s happiness and loyalty are won over by minimal effort on their part.
Reason 2 – Loyalty is not garnered by delight, it’s earned by an effortless experience with your company. What does this look like? In a nutshell: low effort and easy problem solving for all customers. A great example is from ‘The Effortless Experience’ and their study of 97,000 customers across a variety of industries. They analyzed their responses and found there is virtually no difference at all between the loyalty of those customers whose expectations are exceeded and those whose expectations are simply met. Loyalty actually plateaued once customer expectations were met.
Reason 3 – Taking the time to manifest ‘delight’ could be much better spent elsewhere! You just read that going ‘above and beyond’ doesn’t do much to increase customer loyalty. So where should you put your time money and effort? Find out what customers are saying is a hurdle to getting the right answers and help from your company. Certain parts of your website unclear? The lines at your shops too long? Service reps make you repeat info you’ve already given on a web form? There are thousands of points of contact that can be made easier, more seamless and more user friendly. Find those out and focus your energy there.
Your customer reviews are one of the best ways to figure out what bottlenecks there might be for customer loyalty. WebPunch can help you organize, manage and understand what people are saying so you can make changes, today!
