Last week the RESPONSE Agency ordered reprints of a BusinessWeek article to use in a direct mail program. One day after the reprints arrived, a live body from BusinessWeek called to ask if we had received the reprints and if all was well. The guy was good. If he was reading from a script, I couldn't tell. He sounded like he actually gave a darn about making sure they had done a good job for us.

To put this in perspective: we had never ordered from them before, they had never heard of us, the order was admittedly small, we are a small company, BusinessWeek is a major publication, and its parent, Bloomberg, is a giant. 

So I have to admit I was impressed. I felt like our business was important to the caller and to BusinessWeek.

Also last week, I had a new refrigerator delivered to my home. A few hours later, the phone rang. A recorded voice told me that my business was appreciated, and then told me which buttons to press to indicate my level of satisfaction with the product and delivery.

Guess which company I truly believe values my business.

—Steve Cuno
 
 
Customer loyalty is attained by giving your best customers privileges. Not by entrapping them. And privileges are not necessarily freebies. Let me illustrate.

Entrapment: Unhappy with your new cell phone carrier? Tough. You're stuck with them for the duration of your contract, unless you want to pay bail. What's more, if you pay bail and switch, you risking ending up just as unhappy and just as stuck with your next provider.

Loyalty: I came down with bronchitis. Yesterday it became unbearable. I called my favorite clinic. Lots of clinics take my insurance. What makes this one my favorite? For one thing, my doctor told me, "If you ever need a same-day appointment and my receptionist tells you I'm booked, tell her I said I will always work you in." For another, when I arrived, I was told there were two ahead of me. No problem; I'd brought a book. But the doc walked in just a moment later. She said, "You're a long-standing client, so we moved you up." For yet another, she called me a few hours later. "When I wrote your prescriptions," she said, "I forgot to ask if you needed cough syrup to help you sleep. Do you need me to phone that in for you?" In short, this clinic is my favorite because they treat me like I matter.

Loyalty is the antithesis of entrapment. Loyalty means customers willingly stay with you because they like you better and trust you more. And that is a result of how you treat them. Not of what you claim in your ads.

P.S. The cell phone provider that drops long-term contracts and keeps customers by earning their business every month will have an opportunity to clean up.

—Steve Cuno
 
 
It's time for Mr. Joe Szymanski, fellow principal here at the RESPONSE Agency, to visit the dentist for a semi-annual checkup. When he called just now, however, the receptionist didn't give him an appointment. She gave him a reservation. 

I like that word choice. Only testing will reveal if reservations with a dentist sell better than appointments. But I wouldn't be surprised if they do.

Steve Cuno
 
 
On Sunday, gun rights activists marched into a Virginia Starbucks wearing plainly visible guns. They hoped to provoke Starbucks into tossing them out so that they could raise a First Amendment fuss.

Starbucks ignored them.

That was smart PR by Starbucks. Staying out of a fray takes vision, smarts and guts. And, that was bad PR by gun rights activists. The public is less likely to agree you're being picked on when you go around provoking confrontations.

(Click here to read the NPR story.)

Steve Cuno
 
 
Comcast has done a good job of making their name a household word. Now they have announced plans to rebrand their internet, phone and cable TV services under the name Xfinity.

I'm not sure what Xfinity means. "Formerly infinite," perhaps?

Such so-called rebrands cost money. New signs, letterhead, business cards, vehicle IDs, etc., etc., are but the iceberg's tip. The real expense comes in retraining the masses to recognize you by, and trust you in association with, the new name. 

Which leads me wonder: what marketing problem does this so-called rebrand solve for Comcast?

I refer to this as a "so-called" rebrand because a new name and logo do not a brand make. Those are marks. Brands are bigger and go deeper. (I deal with this extensively in my book.)

Steve Cuno