Posts Tagged ‘poc’

Holding on To A Customer

Tuesday, August 18th, 2009

Holding on to a customer has never been harder.

In today’s ever changing service arena the key to winning customers has nothing to do with price or even product. It’s emotional connection. In the past measuring customer loyalty was a challenge mostly because organizations didn’t understand loyalty. We now know that loyalty is tied to consistent and positive points of connection. Because emotions are perceived as soft, messy, and hard to deal with, emotions make many organizations nervous. Organizations can’t ignore this critical ingredient anymore because the emotional connection with a customer is the basis for creating and building customer relationships.

How can we measure the emotional effect on loyalty? The Gallup Organization suggests using measurements that assess things such as overall brand loyalty, confidence, integrity, pride and passion for the brand. The brand can be the company’s name, its products or services, its people, its policies, etc. Although many of these areas refer to the products or services, connecting with a service provider has a huge impact on the customer’s perception of the brand.

If you want to find out who your loyal customers are, find out how likely they are to recommend your organization to someone else. Remember, one of the key measurements of loyal customers is their desire to recommend your organization. There is a direct and strategic correlation between an organization’s revenue growth and its customer loyalty score.

How does your organization’s measure customer loyalty score?

Always Creating a Powerful Connection

Tuesday, August 18th, 2009

Have you ever been to a retail store where someone was helping you and then the person disappeared? When you asked someone else to help you and his or her response was, “Is someone else taking care of you?” You answer, “Yes, but he seems to have disappeared.” The response often is, “Well if he is helping you, then I can’t.” You are stranded in the zone of service provider indifference probably getting more frustrated by the minute.

The emotional state of your service provider will always influence the outcome of the service interaction, and emotionally positive points of connection are the best predictor of Customer Loyalty. Have you ever thought about the criteria your customers use to evaluate positive service interactions with your organization? According to Zeithaml, Parasuraman, and Berry from their book, Delivering Quality Service, there are five key areas Customers use to evaluate service.

Reliability. Can Customers depend on the organization to accurately and dependably provide service to them?

Assurance. Do the service providers convey confidence about their product or the service, and do the Customers trust the service provider?

Tangibles. This deals specifically with the appearance of the service area, the store, the lobby etc., and the appearance of the customer service provider. Is the environment pleasing and appropriate, and is the service provider dressed appropriately, smiling, warm and genuinely open? If interacting with customers via the phone obviously smiling, tone of voice, and listening intently will create positive points of connection with Customers.

Empathy. This is the strongest skill that demonstrates if a service provider genuinely cares.

Responsiveness. This involves the ability to provide prompt or timely service, and measure the willingness of the service provider to help Customers.

If points of connections are positive, chances are the Customer will return. If the points of connection really made an impact and provided value to the Customer then there is a much greater chance the person will become a loyal Customer … and loyal Customers positively impact the bottom line!

Do you have processes within your organization that provide you with the ability to monitor and measure every point of connection in your service cycle? If not, start now!