Shep Hyken's Blog, page 236

Guest Blog: A DIFFERENT KIND OF SOCIABILITY

This week on our Friends on Friday guest blog post, my friend and colleague Ted Janusz writes about worker satisfaction.  He provides an excellent argument for how important it is to show employees appreciation and how this can influence the customer experience.

Have you ever noticed that most customers tend to ignore people who work with the public, treating them like cogs in a machine unless the customers want to complain?

Have you also noticed how most of these customers start off their requests (or what may be more accurately described as demands) with the word “gimme” instead of “please?”

This afternoon, I walked into my local Subway store. I announced to the sandwich artist behind the counter, “It’s great to see you again!” She beamed and the rest of our conversation as she worked went something like this:

Sandwich Artist: “Did you know that I got engaged?”

Me: “No, I didn’t! Congratulations!”

S.A.: ‘Yes, he’s a really nice guy. He’s a tech at a local hospital.”

Me: “‘Really nice guy,’ huh? Isn’t that an oxymoron?”

S.A. (laughs): ‘Yes, I could tell you some dating horror stories, if you’d like to hear them.”

Me: “Guess I am lucky I’ve never had to date a guy.”

S.A.: ‘You sure are! Want to see my ring?” (She takes off her engagement ring and hands the diamond-studded arrangement to me.)

Me (waving my hand): “Oh no, I’d probably just drop it. But my, what a rock!”

As we were talking I notice something. The sandwich artist was loading my sub with piles and piles of chicken. There is now enough meat on the bun to fill three sandwiches.  As the manager walks by, I begin to feel sorry for the sandwich artist. What will the manager tell her later about giving away all of the profits?

I realized that the sandwich artist was treating me exactly how I was treating her. She was subtly trying to show me appreciation in the only way she knew how, by treating me as a special customer. (By the way, I don’t suggest using this technique as a manipulative ploy. I just do it because I get a kick out of it.)

The Difference

In worker satisfaction surveys over the last 75 years, the number-one complaint of employees is neither wages nor benefits, but rather a lack of appreciation. People don’t work for companies. They work for people. And usually, employees don’t hear from the boss until they make a mistake.

According to Howard Feiertag and John Hogan, authors of Lessons from the Field, studies show that in 68 percent of cases where businesses lose customers, it is because of a lack of appreciation. We ignore our customers to death, so they go away to find someone else who will appreciate their business.

I am sure you have experienced this. You walk into a dry cleaners and the first thing they say, without even looking up at you, is, “Lastname?” You walk in next week, again you hear “Lastname?” You walk in the week after that…never mind, there is no week after that. You have already moved on to another business establishment that you hope will value your patronage. We all want to frequent businesses like the one portrayed in the television sitcom “Cheers,” “where everybody knows your name.”

Why do I mention this? 80 percent of consumer choices are based on personal recommendations. The social media tools we discuss in this column only make it easier for your customers to spread the word about your business virally.

Look at the motion picture industry. How often do you see a film advertised on television a month or so after its release to try to boost attendance? Never. In fact, the first weekend of a motion picture’s release tends to make or break the film. Why? Among other reasons, people are using Twitter to tell their friends about how good or bad the flick is, often right from the movie theater! Your satisfied employees and customers are your best source of advertising period.

But it all starts with you showing both your employees and your customer’s sociability.

Ted Janusz is a master facilitator, and coach who has presented over five hundred full-day presentations.  He loves to work with people, and it shows.  His energy, enthusiasm and expertise will ignite, inform and motivate your audience.

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Customer Service Rules vs. Guidelines

Lessons about Customer Service

Sometimes “company policy” drives me crazy.  Often policies are perceived as unbendable rules.  When it comes to customer service, the words policies and rules may not be the best choice of words for creating a customer focused environment.  The story I’m about to share is filled with lessons about customer service.  You’ve probably even had this happen to you.

Three of us walked into a restaurant for dinner.  A fourth person was going to join us, but he was running late.  He said to start without him.

We told the hostess we needed a table for four.  There were several open tables.  She noticed there were just three of us and asked where the fourth was.  We told her he was running late and we were going to order without him.  That’s when she said:

I’m sorry. We can’t seat you until your entire party is here.

Although we told her he was running late and we wanted to order without him, it made no difference to her.  She was following the company “policy”.  By the way, I can appreciate the restaurant’s position.  Some guests sit at the table and don’t order until the rest of the party shows up.  In that case, I understand.   Good restaurants tell their guests they will be seated at the very next table once the rest of the party arrives.  Good solution, but that didn’t apply to this situation.

Now, back to the story.  What happened next could have come from a script from Seinfeld.

I said, “Okay there are only three of us.  We need a table for three.

She said, “Sir, you’re lying to me.”

Darn, she caught me. (I’m being sarcastic.)  I said, “Just give us a table for three.”

I thought for sure she would start to argue with me.  After all, she apparently wanted to follow the rules and she had just called me a liar.  But she didn’t argue.  Instead she grabbed three menus and immediately seated us at a table… that had four chairs!

This is the kind of situation that really makes my blood boil.  How many customers has she upset in the past – or will upset in the future?

Consider this:

The employee was just doing her job.  She was probably told by a boss not to seat incomplete parties.  In the restaurant business, this usually applies to situations where there is large party and the first person shows up.
She was not empowered to make good decisions on behalf of the customer.
She probably wasn’t trained properly on how to make those good decisions.
And if she was trained, whoever hired her may have made a bad hiring decision.

Let’s assume this employee is a good person, who with training can understand and deliver a good customer service experience.  It’s okay to have some guidelines and boundaries.  Be careful about calling them rules or policies.  The word “guideline” implies some flexibility.  Employees must understand that they bend to meet the needs of the customer, as long as it doesn’t cause harm to the company.

If you have the right system in place and the customer service experience is clearly defined, you are off to a good start.  Recognize that it is your people that will deliver on the experience, so choose them wisely.  Hire people that understand customer service.  Teach them how to deliver your brand of customer service. Coach them when you see opportunities to improve.  Praise them when you see them doing it right.

Shep Hyken is a customer service expert, professional speaker and New York Times  bestselling business author. For information contact (314)692-2200 or www.hyken.com. For information on The  Customer  Focus™ customer service training programs go tohttp://www.thecustomerfocus.com. Follow on Twitter: @Hyken

(Copyright ©MMXIII, Shep Hyken)

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5 Top Customer Service Articles For the Week of November 4, 2013

TOP CUSTOMER SERVICE AND BUSINESS ARTICLES

Each week I read a number of customer service articles from various online resources. Here are my top five picks from last week. I have added my comment about each article and would like to hear what you think too.

The Secret Magic Behind Netflix Customer Service by Timothy Stenovec

(Huffington Post) Pretending to be a fictional character or offering dating advice would probably get you reprimanded — or possibly fired — from the customer service department of most companies.  At Netflix, taking on the persona of a Star Trek captain during a live chat with a customer gets you on national TV, a trip to Netflix headquarters in California, your very own captain’s shirt and an iPad mini.

My Comment: Netflix seems to have it together. They want to give great customer service – and they do. They empower their employees, let them inject their own personalities into their job and give them a very fulfilling employment experience. That’s part of what gets their employees engaged and makes the customers’ experiences even better.

Infographic: Horrifying Customer Service Can Be Deadly by James Jarnot

(Direct Marketing News) Customer service has a grim reputation, and customers aren’t putting up with these nightmare experiences anymore.

My Comment: In the spirit of Halloween, this infographic shares some terrifying statistics that will make you think twice about tricking your customers and delivering anything less than a good customer experience. Great compilation stats and facts.

Decoding Customer Service Speak: Are You Secretly Being Insulted? by Christopher Elliott

(MintLife) Spend enough time around customer service agents and you understand that what they say and what they mean are often two very different things.

My Comment: Sometimes the words we use with our customers don’t always send the right message. “You’re call is very important to us,” doesn’t work when the customer is forced to wait extended periods of time. How many phrases, acronyms or other industry/company jargon get in the way of communicating customer amazement to your customer?

10 Top Business Tycoons in the World Talk Customer Experience by Joana Armie

(Win the Customer!) Even the most savvy business tycoons in the world with their areas of business expertise have to rely on customer experience as a competitive advantage in today’s customer centric world.

My Comment: Put ten of the top CEO’s in a room and ask them to share one piece of customer service advice, this is what you get. Great article with great thoughts from some amazing business leaders.

10 Creative Ways To Deepen Customer Loyalty By Thomas Oppong

(Alltopstartups) Resolving customer complaints early and fast is your best bet at retaining the new age customer. Make the effort towards building customer loyalty and you have customers as long as your business exist. These are some of the best and practical ways to build and deepen customer loyalty.

My Comment: I love a good list to improve a business, and here are ten ways to create customer loyalty.

Shep Hyken is a customer service expert, professional speaker and New York Times  bestselling business author. For information contact (314)692-2200 or www.hyken.com. For information on The  Customer  Focus™ customer service training programs go tohttp://www.thecustomerfocus.com. Follow on Twitter: @Hyken

(Copyright ©MMXIII, Shep Hyken)

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Guest Blog: Names ARE A Big Deal

This week on our Friends on Friday guest blog post, my colleague Jeremy Watkin writes about the importance of using your customers name, correctly.  I agree and believe that using a customers name enhances the customer experience.         

I have an ongoing issue that has been nagging at me for a while and I really need to get it off my chest.  First of all, you should know that the name given to me at birth is “Jeremy Watkin.”  That is the correct spelling of my name and there are no acceptable alternate spellings to my name.  I just needed to lay down those ground rules before proceeding.

As a guitar player, I have been loyal to one guitar manufacturer who I believe builds fantastic guitars at a terrific price.  I have been so loyal in fact that I have purchased four different guitars from them and referred many guitarists to them. Upon purchasing and registering my new guitar they would enter me into their CRM system and register me to receive their quarterly magazine.  The magazine really is a terrific publication and highlights the amazing craftsmanship of their instruments.

Shortly after registering my last guitar, I started receiving not one, not two, but three of their magazines each quarter!  The best part is that they were addressed to Jeremy Watkin, Jeremy Watkins and Jaremy Watkins.  Adding an “S” to the end of my last name is relatively common but the last one is just a bad misspelling.  I laughed the first couple times when I received three copies of the magazine and just gave the extra copies to friends.

After six months or so, I finally decided to call their customer service.  The representative said he fixed my problem but he didn’t.  I continued to receive three at a time.  I called customer service again and they said they fixed the problem and I can happily confirm I now only receive one magazine.  There’s just one problem.  The magazine is addressed to Jaremy Watkins!

There are a couple opportunities to learn from this story that I would like to highlight.

A Person’s Name Is Important- Dale Carnegie is famously quoted as saying “A person’s name to them is the sweetest sound in any language.”  Allow me to slightly modify that quote.  “Misspelling a person’s name or modifying a person’s name without their permission might sound like a swear word to them in any language.”

First Call Resolution Is Important- It is essential that you train your customer service team to resolve customer issues on the first call as much as possible.  Agents should take a few extra moments to check their work, review it with their customers and get it right the first time.  Failure to get it right the first, second or even third time may exasperate your customers and give them reason to go elsewhere.

Fixing The Underlying System Is Important- It’s entirely possible that there is a flaw in the company’s CRM system that needs to be addressed.  I should probably show up as one person owning three guitars rather than three slightly different people with the same address owning three guitars.

Names are a fundamental component to the customer service process and are critical to successful human interaction.  By referring to your customer by the correct name you communicate value to them and it’s one critical ingredient in building a deeper bond between that customer and your brand.

Jeremy Watkin is the Director of Customer Service for Phone.com and is cofounder and regular contributor on Communicate Better Blog .  The blog is focused on observing and learning from both good and bad customer experiences.  Follow Jeremy on Twitter and LinkedIn for more awesome customer service insights.

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Respect your Customers’ Time: Resolve Customer Service Complaints Quickly

How Do you Deal with Bad Customer Service

How much time do you spend on the phone dealing with bad customer service?

According to a recent article by Brian O’Connell, writing in The Street, adults in the United States spend, on average, 364 minutes every year on the phone, waiting – and hoping – to fix a complaint.  That’s about six and a half hours.  Let’s put this in perspective.  If you are one of these “average people,” in just a little over six years, you lose an entire work week of productivity; right about 40 hours!  Worse than that, if you start thinking long term, as in about 25 years, you will have lost an entire month.

O’Connell’s information was based on data from Populus Research and Kana Software, who refer to the “complaint wait” as the “hidden price of doing business.”  Some interesting stats and facts came from their study:

71% of US consumers have lodged a customer service complaint in the last three years and the time wasted on each complaint was one hour and four minutes.
Getting the problem resolved took three attempts and 69% of the customers had to repeat their complaint multiple times.
39% of people use the phone to lodge a complaint.  33% use email.
Only 7% turn to social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter and Yelp to vocalize their complaints.

That last statistic surprises me a bit.  Based on other surveys, I thought more people had been turning to social media for customer service issues.  7% seems low.  These are the “squeaky wheels that get the oil.” Even if the number is just 7%, these are the customers who broadcast negative publicity about your company to their friends, followers, and in some cases like Yelp, to the general public.  That number is on the rise as consumers become better educated on how to effectively use social media to be heard and get their problems resolved.

For all types of businesses, especial B-2-C, the statistics in this article should be a wake-up call.  I never thought about how much time the average customer spends on the phone dealing with complaints and other customer service issues.  Time is a precious commodity, and if you “steal” it from a customer, you are showing a tremendous amount of disrespect.

When customers realize that a company they do business with is wasting their time by giving poor service, or forcing them to wait on the phone for customer support, they will consider finding another company to do business with who will give better service, quickly fix problems, and as a result, respect the customers’ time.  Smart companies know this.  They also know that is a value proposition that customers are willing to pay more for.  So, here is your simple, common-sense, you-already-know-it-but-are-you-doing-it customer support strategy:

Fix problems quickly!  And, with the right attitude!

Shep Hyken is a customer service expert, professional speaker and New York Times  bestselling business author. For information contact (314)692-2200 or www.hyken.com. For information on The  Customer  Focus™ customer service training programs go tohttp://www.thecustomerfocus.com. Follow on Twitter: @Hyken

(Copyright ©MMXIII, Shep Hyken)

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5 Top Customer Service Articles For the Week of October 28, 2013

TOP CUSTOMER SERVICE AND BUSINESS ARTICLES

Each week I read a number of customer service articles from various online resources. Here are my top five picks from last week. I have added my comment about each article and would like to hear what you think too.

We’re On the Phone 6.5 Hours With Bad Customer Service by Brian O’Connell

(The Street) If time really is money, consumers are getting short-changed waiting for their customer service complaints to be rectified. U.S. adults spend, on average, 384 minutes every year waiting to fix a complaint, or about 6.5 hours — almost a full work day.

My Comment: I never thought about how much time the average customer spends on the phone dealing with complaints and other customer service issues. Time is a precious commodity, and if you “steal” it from a customer, you are showing a tremendous amount of disrespect. For all types of businesses, especially B-2-C, the statistics in this article should be a wake-up call.

The Not-So-Surprising Lessons From Top-Down Employee Engagement By Mark Babbitt

(SAP Business Innovation) The reality is engagement is nothing but a “top down” matter – and the best among us lead by example in this area known to affect morale, productivity, culture and profits.

My Comment: There is no doubt about the great benefits of having engaged employees. Everything from happier employees, lower turnover, and perhaps one of the best benefits, happier customers, are just some of the good that can come from an engaged workforce. This great article is about how engagement, like the culture of the company, starts at the top. Leaders just can’t say they want it. They must be the best example.

Do You Think Your Customers Think You Care? by Michael Hinshaw

(MCorpConsulting) “Customer Care.” In the eyes of most customers, this is a vastly misused (if not oxymoronic) phrase. Because every company talks about it… but so few actually deliver. This disconnect between what companies say they do and what they actually do is at the heart of customer experience – both good experiences, and bad.

My Comment: Theodore Roosevelt said, “No one cares how much you know, until they know how much you care.”  It’s the same with customers.  They must know you care, for them to begin to care about you – and doing business with you.  If the company doesn’t care about their customers, and fulfill the brand promise (and the advertised promise), it’s just a matter of time before a customer finds somewhere else to do business with that cares more.

Want To Find Brand Ambassadors? Start With Your Employees by Branderati

(Branderati) The 2012 Edelman Trust Barometer, a trust and credibility survey that collects data from more than 30,000 people, found that regular rank-and-file company employees have more credibility than executives. While this might seem like bad news for companies – it should be considered a fantastic opportunity. By turning employees into trusted brand ambassadors, companies bring their strongest asset and their most vocal internal advocates in direct contact with their customer base.

My Comment: Most companies focus on converting their customers to brand ambassadors.  As this fantastic article points out, start on the inside with your own people.  Customers will get the positive vibe from the employees who should be the company’s strongest evangelists.  And, while I’m mentioned in the article, don’t let that deter you. (HA!)  There are some great quotes from other business leaders and some great thoughts to consider.

9 Companies That Offer Great Customer Service by John Egan

(The Sparefoot Blog) In the interest of celebrating excellent customer service, we’ve compiled a list of nine companies known for going the extra mile for the folks who use their products and services. (Keep in mind, though, that people do run into problems with even the cream of the customer service crop.) Here’s our list, in alphabetical order.

My Comment: This is a list of the who’s who of companies who know how to amaze their customers.  But more important is that the author has given some insight to why they are great.  There are a few nuggets to learn from in the “Bottom Line” notes on each of these companies.  How many of these do you incorporate (or could incorporate) into your customer service strategy?

Professional speaker and New York Times bestselling business author. For information contact (314) 692-2200 or www.hyken.com. For information on The Customer Focus™ customer service training programs go to http://www.thecustomerfocus.com. Follow on Twitter: @Hyken

(Copyright ©MMXIII, Shep Hyken)

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Guest Blog: Simple gestures can make a customer go “wow”

This week on our Friends on Friday guest blog post, my friend and colleague Rebecca Morgan shares a story about her travels.  I love this story and believe it demonstrates how kindness and generosity can be key to the customer experience.            

In Cape Town, the Stonehurst Guest House provides simple, clean lodging in a lovely Victorian home with a central courtyard. The owner, Jan, is a kind artist who has run the inn for 30 years. Dan, the manager, and Maureen, the housekeeper, are friendly and accommodating. I chatted with each during my 3-day stay and found them friendly and helpful.

But it was something Jan did that made me go “Wow!”

On the second day, I was standing in the front hallway waiting for a local friend to pick me up and take me to his home for dinner. Jan saw me and came to chat while I waited. I told him of my dinner date and he asked if I had anything to take my friends, like a bottle of wine. I said I hadn’t had time to walk to the market to fetch one, and he said, “Wait right here and I’ll give you a bottle for them.”

Wow. He barely knew me and he was giving up one of his good bottles to these strangers. I was blown away, as were my friends when they saw the special variety.

In my travels domestically and abroad, I’m often bowled over by strangers’ kindness and generosity. It makes me want to pass it forward whenever I can. So when my Turkish friend Tamer asked today if his best friend’s teenaged daughter could come stay with me for a few weeks this summer, I immediately said yes. Tamer has been very generous with me, and I have received so much kindness from others when I’ve traveled, it was the only possible response. I will try to be as thoughtful as Jan, Tamer and so many others have been to me.

Rebecca L. Morgan, CSP, CMC, specializes in creating innovative solutions for customer service challenges. She’s appeared on 60 Minutes, Oprah, the Wall Street Journal, National Public Radio and USA Today. Rebecca is the bestselling author of 25 books, including “Calming Upset Customers” and “Professional Selling.” She is an exemplary resource who partners with you to accomplish high ROI on your key-talent development projects. For information on her services, books, and resources, or for permission to repost or reprint this article, contact her at 408/998-7977, Rebecca@RebeccaMorgan.com

The post Guest Blog: Simple gestures can make a customer go “wow” appeared first on Shep Hyken.

Simple gestures can make a customer go “wow”

This week on our Friends on Friday guest blog post, my friend and colleague Rebecca Morgan shares a story about her travels.  I love this story and believe it demonstrates how kindness and generosity can be key to the customer experience.            

In Cape Town, the Stonehurst Guest House provides simple, clean lodging in a lovely Victorian home with a central courtyard. The owner, Jan, is a kind artist who has run the inn for 30 years. Dan, the manager, and Maureen, the housekeeper, are friendly and accommodating. I chatted with each during my 3-day stay and found them friendly and helpful.

But it was something Jan did that made me go “Wow!”

On the second day, I was standing in the front hallway waiting for a local friend to pick me up and take me to his home for dinner. Jan saw me and came to chat while I waited. I told him of my dinner date and he asked if I had anything to take my friends, like a bottle of wine. I said I hadn’t had time to walk to the market to fetch one, and he said, “Wait right here and I’ll give you a bottle for them.”

Wow. He barely knew me and he was giving up one of his good bottles to these strangers. I was blown away, as were my friends when they saw the special variety.

In my travels domestically and abroad, I’m often bowled over by strangers’ kindness and generosity. It makes me want to pass it forward whenever I can. So when my Turkish friend Tamer asked today if his best friend’s teenaged daughter could come stay with me for a few weeks this summer, I immediately said yes. Tamer has been very generous with me, and I have received so much kindness from others when I’ve traveled, it was the only possible response. I will try to be as thoughtful as Jan, Tamer and so many others have been to me.

Rebecca L. Morgan, CSP, CMC, specializes in creating innovative solutions for customer service challenges. She’s appeared on 60 Minutes, Oprah, the Wall Street Journal, National Public Radio and USA Today. Rebecca is the bestselling author of 25 books, including “Calming Upset Customers” and “Professional Selling.” She is an exemplary resource who partners with you to accomplish high ROI on your key-talent development projects. For information on her services, books, and resources, or for permission to repost or reprint this article, contact her at 408/998-7977, Rebecca@RebeccaMorgan.com

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Customer Service from the C-Suite to the Mail Room

Define the Culture

Recently I was interviewed about why leadership in the “C-Suite” should focus on customer service. The questions I was asked seemed very appropriate, as I hope the answers were. Then as I saw the questions and answers written out, I realized that if the questions were changed to include, not just the leadership of an organization, but virtually everyone in the organization, the answers would almost be identical. Leadership has a lot to do with creating the customer service vision, but everyone must own the responsibility.

The first question was this: From the C-Suite, why is customer service important?

What if we simply changed it to: Why is customer service important? Shouldn’t everyone know the answer? My response to the original question was: When we have competition that sells our customers competing products and services, why should they do business with us? What differentiates us? It’s not just the product. It’s the way we deliver the product. And, more than the front line, it takes the entire company, especially leadership, to create the ultimate customer experience.

The second question: So where do we begin to become a customer focused organization?

Again, shouldn’t everyone know this answer? It starts with the people on the inside – employees. And that means all employees. Recognize that customer service is not a department; it’s a philosophy to be embraced by everyone. Before you can become customer focused, you must become employee focused. Practice internal customer service. The “Employee Golden Rule” I’ve been preaching for years is to treat your fellow employees like you want the customer treated, maybe even better. What’s happening on the inside of the organization is being felt on the outside by the customer.

And the third question was: What can the leaders do to impact customer service?

The original answer had to do with leadership defining the culture and creating a brand promise that focused on customer service. But, here is where I take the position that when it comes to customer service, everyone is a leader. Outside of the decision to create a customer service culture, which comes from the top, everyone can impact the company’s customer service culture. Just as the C-Suite should model good customer service behavior, so should everyone. When people look at you, regardless of you being the CEO or the most recently hired for an entry-level position, would they want to emulate your actions? This is your opportunity to be a leader, someone that everyone respects and admires.

Leadership in the C-Suite will define the culture. They must set the course, prove it is important and model the behavior. Set the tone from the C-Suite. Participate in the same training that the rest of the employees do – and be visible about it. Model the behavior. All eyes are on leadership to set an example. This brings me to the idea that anyone can step up as a leader when it comes to customer service. Just as the C-Suite should model good customer service behavior, so should everyone. When people look at you, be so good that they would want to emulate your behavior.

Shep Hyken is a customer service expert, professional speaker and New York Times  bestselling business author. For information contact (314)692-2200 or www.hyken.com. For information on The  Customer  Focus™ customer service training programs go tohttp://www.thecustomerfocus.com. Follow on Twitter: @Hyken

(Copyright ©MMXIII, Shep Hyken)

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5 Top Customer Service Articles For the Week of October 21, 2013

TOP CUSTOMER SERVICE AND BUSINESS ARTICLES

Each week I read a number of customer service articles from various online resources. Here are my top five picks from last week. I have added my comment about each article and would like to hear what you think too.

5 Takeaways from ‘The Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon’ by StellaService

(Happy Customer) We found many good takeaways for businesses looking to learn from the customer-obsessed culture at Amazon.com — one that’s led the company to pulling in $75 billion in revenues this year. Here are the top five.

My Comment: Great commentary on an excerpt from the new book about Bezos and Amazon.com.  Really love the fifth point about frugality, which states that Amazon.com tries not to spend money on things that don’t matter to the customer.  Great article and looking forward to reading the new book: The Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon – and I bet you can buy it on Amazon.com!

How to Lead Your Way to Customer Loyalty by Susan Baroncini-Moe

(thoughtLeaders) There’s no disputing that retaining customers is far more cost-effective to a business than recruiting new ones. But it’s getting harder and harder to develop customer loyalty. On the flip side, some companies seem to be able to get it right from the start. What does it take to create loyalty so strong that your customers keep coming back for more?

My Comment: If you want your customers to come back again and again, look at the inside of your organization first. This article points out three important strategies/tactics to get customers to come back. Isn’t it interesting that the first two are about employees and leadership. If you want to deliver a customer experience that creates loyalty, start on the inside of the company.

Why customer loyalty is declining and what companies can do about it by Steven Van Belleghem

(Conversation Management) Research shows that consumers are prepared to commit to up to five brands as long as they provide a clear added value. Consumers have an emotional attachment to these brands. As a result, loyalty to these brands is almost self-evident. In other words, there exists a certain brand paradox in the world today. People like specific brands while putting less trust in brands in general.

My Comment: This is an another excellent article on how to create customer loyalty.  The five reasons listed for declining customer loyalty are spot on.  Most businesses are caught in a commodity trap.  They look the same as their competitor.  Giving something away for free won’t work long term if the customer experience is missing.  This article makes the case that customer loyalty is not all about marketing.  Customer loyalty is creating an experience that makes the customer want to come back.

Loyalty Programs Don’t Drive Loyalty; Customer Experience Does by David Jacques

(Customer Input) Forrester published “The State of Loyalty Programs 2013”. I thought the new findings would provide a good occasion to share an updated comparison between loyalty programs and customer experience as drivers of customer loyalty.

My Comment: Some companies confuse a loyalty program with a marketing program. Giving someone a free sandwich after ten visits doesn’t make a customer loyal. (NOTE: The sandwich is just a metaphor for any perk a company gives away in exchange for frequent visits or use.) Give the customer an excellent experience every time and you won’t need to give away the free sandwich. Loyalty is an emotion that ties the company to the customer, and that comes from the way the customer is treated.

5 Rules For Being an Unforgettable Gift Giver by Tom Searcy

(Inc) The right gift can open doors and be the catalyst for great business relationships. Sales guru Tom Searcy spoke with a corporate-gifting expert to get his tips on giving unforgettable gifts.

My Comment: When it comes to the customer experience, showing gratitude and appreciation is so important. It can be a simple verbal thank you, an email, a phone call or thank you note. And, in some special cases, a special thank you gift as mentioned in this article. If you are going to thank someone in a big way, then read this article for the insights on how to make the most impact.

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