Why Be Concerned About Customer Loyalty?

Successful individual professionals strive to build a client base, maintain that client base and work towards repeat purchases and referrals.  Without Customer Loyalty the client base will gradually be depleted.

Customer retention is considered by both scholars and practitioners to be one of the critical success factors for businesses with its implications for cost savings and profitability (Doyle, 2003). The cost of acquiring new customers is five to seven times that of retaining existing ones.

Three factors that influence customer loyalty are:

·         Number one is customer satisfaction dealing with prior expectations of quality and comparing the actual performance received.  In fact the number one cause of losing the loyalty of a customer is the difference between a customer’s expectations and the actual experience of a contact or transaction activity. 

·         A second influence is the perceived alternatives and the cost or difficulty in changing to another provider or vendor.

·         The third and strongest factor that influences true customer loyalty is how strong the business relationship is perceived.  This strength of business relationship is made up of level of satisfaction with the previous experience, the perception of quality and the customer commitment to the relationship.

Arnie Goldberg, Vice President, Loyalty Builder, LLC.  ag@loyaltybuilder.com

STAYING ON TRACK FROM A SALES PERSPECTIVE

I attended a three day seminar called the Achiever's Circle hosted and facilitated by Mark LeBlanc former President of the National Speakers Association.  I am going to relay a brief item that has been extremely helpful for me in my daily activities as presented by Mark.

He calls the item HVA's     (HIGH VALUE ACTIVITIES)

Each evening you NEED to write down three items  (HVA's) that you want to accomplish the next day...not four or five but three.  In the morning ask yourself what are the three HVA's I want to accomplish today!  At the end of the day ask yourself and actually write down next to each of the three items YES or NO... not a partial but a YES or NO as to whether you completed those items.

Never "carry forward" any of the three items (HVA's) to the next day.  Always start with three fresh HVA's for the next day.  You may carry forward unfinished activities for the next day but they are not included in your new set of HVA's.  Thus you do not dwell on the items you did not complete.  

Writing down the YES or NO helps keep yourself accountable.  The idea of only writing down three high value activities (HVA's) each day makes them attainable and does not present you with insurmountable goals in any given day.   We all know we have four and five and even ten important items to accomplish in any given day, but the consistency of three becomes a very productive procedure.

Thanks to Mark for this very wise practice and I am sure you will be grateful to him after you exercise this practice for six months.   You will be amazed how many long term goals you will reach by religiously using HVA's.

Arnie Goldberg

ag@loyaltybuilder.com

(317) 569-0422

www.giveyourdogatreat.com

http://profile.to/arniegoldberg

Stay In Your Customer’s Lives – “Being Nosey”

There is a strategy that many successful realtors use, that other realtors ignore or consider too much work. That is the strategy of staying active in the lives of their existing customers.
I call this strategy, “Being Nosey”….
Be sure to establish a group of trusted service providers for homeowners, with the emphasis on “trusted.”
Deck builders, Chimney sweeps, Electricians, Plumbers, Painters, Landscapers, Window Companies, Remodelers, and more…
Become the one-stop resource for your customers whenever they need help with their home.
Be pro-active and mail your customers a list to keep by their phone, but with only one phone number… YOURS….
One realtor client of mine had a call because their garage door opener quit working… she referred the garage door company, but in the conversation found out the neighbor was thinking of moving. The result was a new listing.
Another realtor client discovered a lot owned by a client’s cousin was going up for sale. She discovered this when her client called for a suggestion regarding a dependable painter.
Written by Arnie Goldberg, VP Marketing 3DM Corporation, Faculty University of Phoenix, Faculty Oakland City University, Faculty Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University.....Author of a new Customer Loyalty book “Give Your Dog A Treat” www.giveyourdogatreat.com - arnie@3dmco.com

Where Does Profitablility Come From?

Profitability

Comes from:

↓

Customer Loyalty

Comes from:

↓

Customer Satisfaction

Comes from:

↓

Quality Customer Service

SUCCESS IN ALL PHASES OF BUSINESS DEPENDS UPON CUSTOMER LOYALTY!

PROFITABILITY

Increased profitability of course comes from referrals and added business from your loyal customers.

CUSTOMER LOYALTY

Customers normally evolve to Loyal Customers from multiple communications. Keep in mind, the more ways a client hears from you, and the more added-value you bring to the table, the more likely they will remember you at the correct time. All customers are interested in value propositions. A single strategy is normally not enough to develop loyal customers, thus you want to develop systems that create a path to increased levels of loyalty.

CUSTOMER SATISFACTION

Customer satisfaction naturally evolves over a serious of actions and interactions with your client and others who affect your client’s transaction. Customer satisfaction is not enough. One click of the mouse, or one phone call, and your satisfied customer just defected to a competitor. Focus on continually providing value to your customers is one key to building and retaining loyal customers.

A real estate example: Your customer will have many more interactions after the sale with home service providers and various vendors providing products and/or services to homeowners. If you are serious about retaining customers for future referrals, these interactions are also going to matter, well beyond the closing. You can stay involved with those interactions and they should be handled with the same conscientious attention as sales calls. In essence this attention is nothing more than “sales calls” for repeat business.

QUALITY CUSTOMER SERVICE

Customer service is your personal approach to how you interact with your clients. Know what clients want and deliver it in a timely manner. No one can do customer service for you… it is up to you.

HOW DO YOU STACK UP IN CREATING LOYAL CUSTOMERS?

Too many realtors take their existing customers for granted. Think of the automobile industry that did the very same thing. They were so bold at one time they said, “Americans will not buy Japanese automobiles.” Another example of the “fickleness” of customers is the remote control. Did you know that 72% of all households have a remote control and they zap the remote control every four minutes, and men zap much more. Thus, companies trying to create customer loyalty with television ads, and are having greater difficulty reaching the consumer.
It is critical for realtors to concentrate on what is New. What I mean by that is what is old is not of much concern anymore to the public. We walk up to someone and say, “What is new?” Thus, the successful realtor has new information, new trends, new newsworthy information, new-new-new stuff for their customers. The old boring newsletters, and refrigerator magnets are not new.
What is new is a valuable coupon at Macy’s or Nordstrom, for the women, or three golf balls for the man. What is new is a $10 coupon for the whole family at a restaurant. What is new is sending a copy of a current newspaper article that is timely and of keen interest to your customers.
Building loyalty is an ongoing process that involves creativity and much thought, but also requires up-to-date data base information, because clients change over time. Growth with more children, maturity, career changes, and neighborhood changes around them, cause customers to have different attitudes and different viewpoints. Great realtors put systems in place to help them keep up with those changes to be more relevant in their customer’s lives.
Loyal customers lead to greater profits.

The Difference Between Products and Services—Customer Decisions

Products have a tangible image that is easily visualized. Buyers or prospects have a different attitude about products as a result. They attach in their minds consistency to a product and the company offering the product. Services however, have the challenge of people perceiving a much more inconsistent viewpoint which causes hesitancy and even skepticism.
Realtors and others that provide services must perform at a different level than is expected. The days of 110% are over, because that is expected. The new goal must be 125% which can lead to being really great. Consumers today ask family, or business acquaintances, and now even more so Social Media friends questions regarding purchase decisions. Social media friends build trust and their comments become very trusted information as to cars to purchase, or even neighborhoods in which to live. Social media has also broadened this information base to the whole country instead of the local contacts only.
Both in establishing trust for a purchase or in building customer loyalty after the purchase, expectations must be exceeded. In order to exceed expectations, the realtor or vendor must understand the complexities of the customer’s motivation and actual emotional makeup regarding decisions. The real work of the successful realtor or business person is not done once the initial transaction is completed.
Top-notch, quality, service professionals have CUSTOMER LOYALTY STRATEGIES in place. In many cases, it is best for small businesses, realtors, mortgage brokers and insurance agents should seek third party companies to help them with these Customer Loyalty Strategies to keep the cost down and have access to Big Business Tools for Small Businesses.

Customer Service Retention Trends in Social Media

Keeping a client year after year is attaining customer loyalty that involves fitting together several pieces of the relationship puzzle. There is a science to understanding client loyalty, to recognizing the value of loyal clients, plus creating and maintaining loyal clients.

Research in the mid-to-late 1990’s held the position that customers who were satisfied were more likely to remain loyal to a company. When organizations delivered a customer experience that met their needs, they returned to that organization more frequently than competition. Current thought reveals only the top echelon of satisfied customers remained loyal to an organization.

I have found while teaching a course on customer retention, the best starting point is to have the students answer a few questions. This process helps a person realize the many factors that affect customer loyalty, and how these factors play upon purchase decisions in their own lives. The survey thought process also shows how we are all different and have different motivations, which is important in developing customer loyalty strategies and programs.

Today there is a swing back to gaining knowledge of the customer and their behavior patterns, as a key element in designing loyalty marketing plans and strategies. With the virile expansion of Social Media, and the younger adults use of Social Media as a daily communication tool, this phenomenon becomes an opportunity for businesses to maintain contact and provide current information to existing customers .
Traditional means of advertising and flows of continuing information to existing customers are losing their effectiveness. Advertisers are not seeing positive results from newspapers and print media and have reduced expenditures in those media. Social Media provides free platforms and the advent of “permission based” communication, with a huge word-of-mouth virile scope.

People are now in a hurry, not only the younger generation, but the fastest growing segment of social media platforms is said to be those from ages 40 to 55. They read news from the internet in brief “tidbits” of information, and they are multi-tasking with several software applications open at the same time on their computers. Often they are switching in the middle of a news article when a message arrives and often never return to the article.

While surveying several social media users, I found they build trust within their social media friends and rely heavily on these friends for purchasing information and company reputation. Positive flows of purchase satisfaction can provide a major component of customer loyalty programs by company marketing departments.

Three Factors that Influence Customer Loyalty

1. Customer satisfaction has to do with prior expectations of quality and customer service then comparing those expectations to actual performance received.
2. Perceived alternatives has to do with the difficulty and/or the cost of moving to a new vendor or service provider.
3. Business relationship deals with how strong the business relationship is perceived

Trends in the growth in Social Media are providing platforms to aid in all three of these customer loyalty influences. Businesses must begin and continue to use the important avenue of communication.