What makes great customer loyalty?

Great customer loyalty is a passion of mine. It’s one of the secrets to success for any size company. While many people focus attention on getting new customers, a good thing, they often miss the fact that their highest profits come from their current customers, if and only if, they know how to maintain an ongoing conversation with the individual customer.

On a recent conference call a very successful marketing person summed it up this way: “You have a flow of people coming into your sales process and they move from one stage to the next, starting as a suspect becoming a prospect until they buy and become a customer. The real secret in generating profits is to continue selling to that new customer as soon as they complete the first purchase. If they continue to buy and I continue to interact with them by following up, we develop a trust relationship and they are now my client. As my client, I know that I have their trust, I will not violate that trust and, I know I can trust the client to buy my products at higher margins since they no longer think about who they should buy from. I take this to another level when I can present the client with an opportunity to become part of my success by making them a partner with rewards as they recommend my product to others.”

That flow and the increase of value at every stage is what makes a great company. Take the time to add extra details in educating and compensating the loyal customer. As every business should know, trust must be established to make a second sale. The first sale can be a fluke, but getting a second sale establishes your customer’s pattern of buying.

Taking this one step further and looking from the client’s view, every person wants to feel like you only care about them and their success. The interesting part of this is that you as the merchant also care about their success but only as it impacts your success. This is known as a symbiotic relationship. This happens when two living beings need each other for some part of their survival. No business survives without customers. The way to get and keep customers is by establishing a trust relationship that you must continue to nourish for a much longer time than completing one sale.

Great customer loyalty is only attained when you can continue the relationship with communication and rewards as you develop and present more products and services that your client tells you they need. Your client will tell you, because they understand the relationship that you supply them with what they need and they count on you to deliver that in a timely manner.

Where great customer loyalty is hindered and sometimes destroyed is when you, the merchant and supplier of the needs, either stop listening, make it difficult to talk to you, or start treating the client as a part of your business rather than the reason your business exists.

Your assignment is to take a tour of your sales process and look at it from the point of view of a first time buyer. Answer these question your self and post them here:

What does that look like at each step?

Are you getting to know that person as a future client and partner or are you just taking the order?

Are you asking for a second order?

If yes, when?

What is the experience like for them?

Here’s to the combined success for you and your customer!

All the best,

Irwin Glenn