Comments on: Guest Post: Recessional Loyalty — Strengthening Your Business Through Retention, Repurchase and Referral

By: Kathy Cabrera

Kathy Cabrera — Tue, 26 May 2009 00:14:02 +0000

re: the power of “word of mouth,” Companies can also do more to help customers spread the good word about their experience through social media. For example, as a recent business traveler I was stranded at a train station trying to rent a car. I’d booked through Hertz but the counter rep never came back from lunch. After 30 minutes, I turned to the Budget counter rep right next door, and he set me up with a car at Hertz’s original rate. I was thrilled. I emailed Budget customer service via their online “contact us” form about my experience. While I can, on my own, share this experience with friends and coworkers in conversations, email, or on Twitter, if Budget had some type of social media component that allowed me to share this experience with my core contacts via social networks, they could easily help me to share this “good word” with more people, and facilitate a higher return on their investment of making my customer experience such a great one. If companies actively ask for customer feedback, or provide a way for customers to submit comments on the website, they could get more mileage from it by also providing a badge or direct link to “tweet this”, recommend it to friends on Facebook, or to your network on LinkedIn.
…. Kathy Cabrera, Director of New Media, http://www.carabinerpr.com

By: Jeanne Bliss

Jeanne Bliss — Fri, 22 May 2009 19:46:42 +0000

Deborah, great post. Here’s my two cents: The fact of the matter is, that driving a customer experience focus means bringing together the silos. That means uniting everyone with new metrics of success, that are operationally relevant and connected to key customer touchpoints that most impact a) initial customer memory and therefore impression of a company and b) reliability of continued interactions throughout the lifecycle, along with a few c) wow moments.
This won’t happen (unfortunately) on its own inside a company when everyone is working hard and even harder now to meet the metrics within their own operating area.
Organic growth right now is the key to the beloved and prosperous companies. And what they do to achieve this is simple: work together.
The work of loyalty begins with the work of the organization. The importance of unifying operational metrics and accountability is still lost in the “customer focus” work. That, in my opinion and experience, is where the customer-profitable companies excel. That’s where companies who yearn to achieve their results should focus. When they do, they will be rewarded with customer growth.
Customers feel best about a unified experience where all parts of company are connected. It’s only then that an experience they’ll want to repeat and tell their friends and family about.

By: Paul Barsch

Paul Barsch — Thu, 21 May 2009 18:36:42 +0000

Deborah, the Forrester report that cited, “consumers who have a good experience with a company are more willing to repurchase, less likely to switch to another company and will likely spread positive word-of-mouth,” makes sense. Too bad there are a fair percentage of customer experiences not designed well for initial customer interactions much less designed to enable repeat purchases.
I’d love to say the transactional relationship is dying a slow death, but my experience as a consumer tells me otherwise.

By: Vancouver Bankruptcy Attorney

Vancouver Bankruptcy Attorney — Thu, 21 May 2009 15:28:41 +0000

Guess it comes back to the whole notion that keeping a loyal customer is much more cheaper and cost effective than having to go out and recruit newer clients.