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
 


Comments

towr
03/30/2010 08:36

One problem for phone companies is that they can't offer you a "free" top-of-the-range phone unless they are sure you will stay with them for a year or two.

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