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Dramatically Improve Customer Loyalty By Flawlessly Executing the Basics

Guest post by: Leanne Hoagland-Smith

Article Overview: Are you engaged in a lot of sparkle to delight your customers? Maybe it is time to shine up the basics and reduce all the glitz?

Dramatically Improve Customer Loyalty By Flawlessly Executing the Basics

A customer loyalty study of 75,000 customers reported in the July 2010 issue of the Harvard Business Review conducted by the Customer Contact Council revealed that in today's crazy busy people (customers) want two (2) things:

1. The basics to be done well
2. Their customer experiences almost effortless

The findings within this report suggested that companies or organizations who focus on just delighting their customers may not be generating the repeat business they had previously thought.

Let us put this in simple terms. You are driving down the highway, you turn off to refuel your car. There are two gas stations with fast food restaurants along with all the bells and whistles of these mega travel plazas. One has petrol at .02 cheaper per gallon. So you pull in for the self-service and encounter these simple basics or lack thereof:

• You swipe your card and machine does not work. Now you must walk inside.
• You finish your purchase, press for receipt and do not receive it. Now you must walk inside.
• The pump is very slow and it takes you three times longer to fuel your tank.
• You walk into the bathroom and it is less than desirable.

All of these examples are not providing the basics of customer service. It truly not about delighting because the fuel has an additional additive or all the specials being promoted. Sure it is nice the pavement is clean, but all you want is for the basics to work.

Another interesting fact is the data suggests the Customer Effort Score (CES) is a much better predictor than the Customer Satisfaction Score (CAST) and still better than Net Promoter Score (NPS). This only makes common sense since people are realizing that time is becoming even more valuable and the easier you can make their shopping experience, the happier they will be. This must be why so many grocery stores are now asking this one question: Where you able to find everything?

What this means is if you can begin with the basics of customer service and make the experience as effortless and flawless as possible including speaking with your customer service call center, then you will have less negative feedback and truly build repeat business. This may start by conducting your own personal customer loyalty service walk. Today more than ever before time is money and this is becoming a very real factor respective to building customer loyalty.

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Article Tags: CAST, CES, crazy busy people, customer loyalty, customer service, NPS



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