Customer loyalty. It’s becoming an
increasingly archaic concept with the
advent of new and progressive technology.
Our world is becoming smaller, and with
it advertising agencies are becoming
bigger, boasting greater access than ever to
the general market. With this immense
increase in available information, ad
agencies are able to better figure out what
consumers want, or think they want, and
they thus act accordingly in order to swipe
customers from the competition.
THATSAID,there are those outthere who areadmirably combattingsuch declining rates ofcustomer loyaltyfairly effectively. Howdo they do it? In thefollowing slides arethree unconventionalmethods successfulcompanies are usingto retain theircustomers:
Oregon Wildlife Park is home to hundreds
of diverse species of wild animals. The
park is open to the public all year round.
SET THE R IGHT EXPECTAT IONS
During sales, it can be very tempting (considering the financial incentive) for the companyto tell a consumer only what they want to hear. However, although this may work fairly
well in bringing on new customers, it is not an effective way to retain them. Aside from theobvious moral contradiction of not being entirely honest, misleading customers is boundto cultivate a relationship of not just distrust, but disappointment. Businesses and services
are not perfect and should not be presented as such. To do so only strings along acustomer until they run out of patience. However, if accurate expectations are set whileclients/customers are being brought on, then they will be more open to any potential
discrepancies or slight obstacles down the line.
Build Relationships that Matter
Although you might think thathaving a successful product orservice should result in morechurn, that is wrong. In fact,
what happens all-too-often isthat a successful product orservice actually has a higher
customer turnover rate,essentially indicating that
customers were leaving becausethey no longer needed help.
Well, the way around this is to buildclient relationships that truly
matter, that extend beyond theconfines of detached emails andoffice cubicles. By personalizing
your professional relationship (to anextent), you will be humanizing your
service and thus will be morevaluable to the customer in
question, because no not only areyou providing an effective
capitalistic value, you are providingpersonal and emotional value as
well.
U N D E R S T A N D I N T E G R A LM O M E N T S I N T H E C U S T O M E RL I F E T I M E .
F I G U R E O U T W H E N A N D W H E R E C U S T O M E R S T E N D T O D R O P O F F
F R O M Y O U R P R O D U C T O R S E R V I C E . B Y U N D E R S T A N D I N G W H E N
C O N S U M E R S A R E M O S T S U S C E P T I B L E , Y O U W I L L B E B E T T E R A B L E
T O I N F L U E N C E T H E I R D E C I S I O N A T T H E T I M E . I N V E S T I N T H E S E
P I V O T A L M O M E N T S , A N D D E L I V E R A G R E A T C U S T O M E R
E X P E R I E N C E A T T H O S E E X A C T T I M E S . B Y F O L L O W I N G T H R O U G H
A T T H E S E M O M E N T S O F V U L N E R A B I L I T Y , Y O U R S E R V I C E W I L L
P R E S E N T I T S E L F A S V A L U A B L E R I G H T W H E N C O N S U M E R S M A Y
S T A R T T O F E E L O T H E R W I S E . A N T I C I P A T E T H E I R O N C O M I N G
N E G A T I V E P E R C E P T I O N A N D B U I L D O U T A R E L A T I O N S H I P T H A T
W I L L M A K E I T M O R E D I F F I C U L T T O Q U I T .
In our day and age of Millennial jobhopping, decreased attention spans, and
increased ADHD, it only makes sensethat customer loyalty is declining. Yet,
that does not mean we need to embracethe failure as failure. We can embrace
the failure as an opportunity, learn fromit, and reverse the trend. Good luck!