Posts Tagged ‘points of connection’

The Essence of True Customer Loyalty

Thursday, January 14th, 2010

As a business we help companies adopt and implement customer loyalty as a management strategy, and we help employees inside those companies understand how they impact the success of loyal customer relationships. Therefore, I am acutely aware of service interactions—the good and the bad.

After my early gym routine this morning, I had a window of time to run across the street to the grocery store. It was approximately 7:20 a.m. and my goal was to pick up some necessities for the week. Based on how the store is laid out, my first stop was the deli. As I waited, because there was no one currently staffing the deli, I observed five staff members in the bakery, the produce section, and the floral department taking inventory, stocking produce, rearranging displays, and discussing certain NFL teams and their playoff status based on yesterday’s games. As I stood there patiently waiting to be helped, none of the five folks who could physically see me thought it important to go find someone to fill my deli order. Their priority was stocking and rearranging. After about five minutes a young lady appeared. She did not say good morning, Happy New Year, or make eye contact. She proceeded to put on her sanitary gloves and asked, “What can I get for you?” She filled my order and sent me on my way with a thank you.

The essence of customer loyalty is all about the points of connection—every single touch point your employees have with every customer. In my seven-minute deli experience there were at least 15 points of connection that were missed or poorly executed. Five staff members watched me wait in front of the deli counter and none of them took the time to acknowledge my existence or offer to find someone to assist me. In my opinion, this earns double demerits because they could clearly see I wanted something from the deli and did nothing about it. (10 points of connection missed). The lady working in the floral area took the time to talk with a bread vendor in lieu of offering assistance (1 point missed).

When the young deli worker appeared there was no eye contact and there was no greeting (2 points missed). Her attitude was lackluster at best. She really did not appear pleased to be at work serving a customer (1 point missed). As she was completing my order another customer appeared and her opening line was “What can I get for you?” with no additional pleasantries (another point missed).

Points of connection define the customer experience and determine how a customer rates their service and how they ultimately rate your business. Your business is dead without customers. Adopting customer loyalty as a management strategy is critical to the success of business and industry in our ever-growing service environment. If you want to make a significant difference in the results of your business for 2010, I would strongly encourage you look how customer loyalty is defined in your organization. I am confident that the five staff people watching me wait for assistance are not bad employees and they were genuinely “doing their job.” However, I am also confident store management does not embrace customer loyalty practices or my early morning shopping experience would have been quite different. Unfortunately, my experience with the deli that morning is not my first.

Why do I continue to shop there? It is the closest store to my home and office. However, next closest store is only about 3 miles further and I have decided to break my habit and investigate the other store. If their services prove to be better my current store will lose a 5-year, weekly customer. By my conservative calculations that nets approximately $20,800 worth of business.

Take a serious look at your organization’s customer loyalty standards, practices, and measurements. No business in today’s ever changing economic world can afford to lose a customer because of non-existent or inappropriate points of connection.

Tammy A.S. Kohl is President of Resource Associates Corporation. For over 30 years, RAC has specialized in business and management consulting, strategic planning, leadership development, executive coaching, and youth leadership. For more information visit www.resourceassociatescorp.com or contact RAC directly at 800.799.6227.

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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?

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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!

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