Last week, I gained a great insight from my tennis instructor, Nick Mathews.
After an invigorating but challenging hour with him, he talked to me about his client approach. He explained that he customizes his approach to ensure that the student enjoys the experience, yet stays loyal to the results over time.
"Loyalty makes my career more interesting," he explained.
Most of the time, when others talk about customer loyalty, the benefits are usually financial and reputational. But to Nick loyalty gives you more than income. "When I have a student for a long time, we get to try out new ideas for conditioning or game play. The longer they are with me, the more we get to stretch the limits."
Wow, never thought of it that way. He's right, though. If you constantly churn your clients, you may have novelty (new faces), but you are doing the same old thing (orient, serve, satisfy, repeat). Only with trust do you get to collaborate with the client -- and have some real fun!
"Besides," he concluded, "it's a lot more rewarding to think that people enjoy your service so much they can't live without it." This brings up a point to companies from big to small: Customer loyalty creates a positive work experience for talent and an inspiring place for leaders. If the client loves you, and there's no constant cycle of sales/marketing, work life and retention get better. Daniel Goleman, in Primal Leadership, argues that a positive mood state at work will increase profits as it drives employee engagement. Nothing creates a good mood like an old time client that loves you.
Takeaway: Put loyalty at the top our your priorities. Don't view loyalty simply as an annual spend or "cost to replace" issue as you'll under value it dramatically. Loyalty is more than repeat business, it is an emotional attachment with working with YOU.
Deconstruct the customer/client experience to make sure you are setting good expectations, inserting an emotional value proposition, and making it easy to gather feedback from the customer. If you get loyalty right, the rest will surely follow.
The amazing thing about this post is that the world "loyalty" has been so abused for the last decade that this very commonsensical blogpost seems amazing.
"Loyalty" used to be used identified with phrases like 'semper fi,' or 'till death do us part.' Nowadays it's come to mean price-promotions. A "loyalty program" is nothing more than a short-term promotion. The use of the word is a sham.
Tim and Nick Matthews are, quite rightly, re-discovering what the word used to mean. Good for you both.
Posted by: Charles H. Green | February 09, 2010 at 07:18 PM
This post really hit a nerve. Thx. You articulated an experience I have with some of my favorite clients--that mutual feeling of stretching and playing a good (to great) game. It also implicitly clarifies for me why some clients are ready to "graduate"--the emotional investment isn't there. Even if they represent "repeat/ongoing" business, there isn't a lot happening and the satisfaction wanes.
Posted by: Janet Goldstein | February 01, 2010 at 12:38 PM