Are you kidding me?? Is what I can hear you all saying. Does he not realize that the customer is the consumer and the consumer is the customer?
Are you ready for this............Yep! I promise I have a reason for this obvious title to my post. But hold on...... do I always I have to be a customer if I am consuming a product? When my wife goes to the grocery store she is "customer" or buying certain products that she brings home for our family to eat. My son who doesn't buy any of it, consumes what we buy. According to Dictionary.com a consumer is defined, "One that consumes, especially one that acquires goods or services for direct use or ownership rather than for resale or use in production and manufacturing." Now let's look at what a customer is, "a person who purchases goods or services from another; buyer; patron." So you have one that buys the product and one that is a consumer of the product. Do you have to become a customer before you become a consumer? If this is the case, would it be helpful to create customer loyalty before you create consumer loyalty? I would say........yep!
How do you create customer loyalty? What are some things that you could do to foster repeat business, because, let's be honest, that is really the reason for creating customer loyalty. It starts with the CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE.
The other day my wife and I were in a furniture store looking for a desk for our office in our home. After walking around in the home office section for 10-15 minutes we found a desk that we liked a lot. After another 5- 10 minutes hoping someone would come help us answer some of our questions I finally had to go and ask for help. The thing that was really interesting was that their customer service reps were all standing around talking to one another and the counter they were standing at was maybe 10 feet away from us. Once we got someones attention we had a few questions that were answered in a "I can't believe they are bothering me with this stuff right now" kind of attitude. My wife is sensitive to this kind of stuff which I think is great! She can tell very quickly whether someone is genuinely wanting to help or just doing their job. After a few minutes we just said thank you and left. Do you think we will be going back there any time soon to buy something? Is it possible the next time we are at a friends house or in a doctors office that we will be sitting on a piece of furniture from this company? Granted we are not buying the couch or chair, but remember we are using it for "direct use". Will that make us want to go buy from them? Think about the logic here everyone! If you don't have a memorable customer experience will you become a loyal customer? I will leave that up to you. If you "consume" or use one of their products down the road will you be a loyal consumer? Can you see the affects the customer experience can have on people?
Why is customer loyalty important to you?
How would it change the way you look at customers if your number one priority was to make them happy?
Can a loyal customer become a loyal consumer without a great customer experience involved?
Are You a Jerk for Sending that Email at 9 pm?
2 years ago
I think it is apparent that a customer has to have a positive experience, who wants to not enjoy their time in your establishment and then come back to spend their hard earned dollar to support you when you were not willing to create a wonderful experience for them?
ReplyDeleteI think that customer loyalty is very important. When I was younger Wal*Mart decided to expand into the grocery business, when this happened there was an outrage because everyone had heard how the evil empire takes Ma & Pop shops out of business. Well they put in the grocery store, opened up, comp’ed really heavy to gain customers and sure everyone had to shop there for the first few months. But in the end, the small stores that had been around for 50 plus years had not been hurt too badly, they had a very loyal base in town, especially since they catered to the LDS community. That in itself was enough to sustain it, it is still in operation. I heard from an owners son that with Wal mart coming to town, that helped their direction and thought process and they have since expanded their garden section and are now the premier place to shop for garden supplies.
I do think that having that experience is good to create a loyal customer, but you better have a product that can meet the expectations of quality the consumer is wanting. If I had the best service at a restaurant and got the food, which was cold and really, had no flavor and had grease on the bottom of the plate. Then I can guarantee you- I will drop a tip but will never return. I will not promote that restaurant to any friends or family.
In my experience, if you have a loyal customer that has not had a great customer experience, they will stay loyal, because there is a reason they keep coming back, you may not be nice to them but may actually give them quality work and they know they will pay you once and your work will last for a long time. It is a tough card to play, but it is worth every customer be treated respectfully and never to be talked down to or spoken at as though they are the ones that break the camels back for your customer service representatives.
Taylor, what are you feeling of the previous comment?
ReplyDeleteThank you for your comment! There is no doubt that there has to be a product that appeals to the customer and delivers. The way I look at it is everyone, no matter who you are, wants to feel important, it's human nature. I think this may be where we are a little different. If I go to a restaurant and have bad service and the food is good. I won't go back. It's not worth it to have to deal with poor service. I can go to any other restaurant in town, get the same quality food and hopefully better service. On the other hand if I go to a restaurant and the service is great, I feel important and that server genuinely wants to make sure I am happy, but the food happened to be fair or poor even, I think most would go back and give them another shot because that server should have either(A)fixed that cold greasy order or(B)they want to give them another chance because of how they felt when they were there, important cared for etc..... Loyalty will most of the time be based on how you made the customer feel, from my experience.
ReplyDelete