One of the common misconceptions about customer loyalty is that it is the same as customer satisfaction. While customer satisfaction is important, it does not necessarily translate into customer loyalty. Customer satisfaction measures how well a product or service meets or exceeds customer expectations, while customer loyalty measures how likely a customer is to repeat purchases, recommend the brand, and resist switching to competitors. Customer satisfaction can be influenced by many factors, such as price, quality, convenience, and availability, but customer loyalty depends on deeper emotional connections, trust, and value propositions. Therefore, to build customer loyalty, you need to go beyond satisfying your customers and focus on creating memorable experiences, rewarding loyalty, and fostering relationships.
Many people confuse customer loyalty for transactional efforts (discounts, buy 9, get the 10th free). Customer loyalty is about a relationship, not about a transaction. Businesses that rely on transactional efforts will be bested when a bigger discount, etc. comes along. True loyalty transcends those transactions to a long-term, mutually beneficial relationship.
Customer satisfaction does not lead to customer loyalty. Customer delight does. You have been happy because you are customers are left satisfied with the purchase of your product, service, or resolution to their problem. But that's not good enough. Satisfied customers feel that their experience is good, not better, just average. Nobody raves about average. And satisfied customers will not return as soon as they find an experience that is better for a price that is less expensive. So, you have to do better. Don't serve to satisfy customers. Don't treat customers as they expect to be treated. Instead, treat them a little better than they expect. Serve to WOW them. Serve to CARE. Communicate. Acknowledge. Respond. Enrich.
My friend Carol Roth stole my answer, but she’s exactly right. The punch card is a perfect example, let’s use Carol’s example of buying 9 items and the 10th one is free. This builds loyalty to the OFFER, not the brand. As soon as you have purchased the 9th item, you receive the free item, but now you are ‘reset’ and you need to buy 9 more items to get a free one. When you have to start over, that’s when you will start looking to see if a competitor has a better offer. So it builds loyalty to the offer (Buy 9 and the 10th one is free!), not the brand.
Il est facile de confondre les concepts de satisfaction client et fidélité client. Alors quand on se rend compte qu'un client part chez la concurrence, ou ne répète pas ses achats on est déçu et on ne comprend pas pourquoi. La fidélité client va au-delà des indicateurs mesurables. La fidélité client ne s'obtient pas uniquement parce que nous avons un produit qui répond à la demande. Elle s'inscrit dans une dynamique plus profonde de relation humaine entre le commercial de l'entreprise et le client. La fidélité du client peut toute fois se travailler, en apprenant à l'écouter réellement, ses besoins, ses envies, ses passions, ses peurs, ses contraintes etc. ce qui nous permet par la suite d'être proactif, d'anticiper des demandes.
While customer satisfaction typically reflects a single interaction's success, customer loyalty reflects a long-term relationship. A series of WOW moments of truths /interactions, transform a satisfied customer into a brand loyalist. These "delighted" customers become vocal advocates, not just repurchasing themselves, but recommending your product/service to others.
Another common misconception is that employee engagement is the same as employee satisfaction. While employee satisfaction is important, it does not necessarily lead to employee engagement. Employee satisfaction measures how happy or content employees are with their work environment, compensation, benefits, and management, while employee engagement measures how committed, motivated, and productive employees are in their work roles, goals, and outcomes. Employee satisfaction can be influenced by many factors, such as perks, incentives, recognition, and feedback, but employee engagement depends on more intrinsic factors, such as purpose, autonomy, growth, and alignment. Therefore, to boost employee engagement, you need to go beyond satisfying your employees and focus on empowering them, challenging them, and inspiring them.
Both customers and employees need to feel valued. Customers are more likely to be loyal to brands that recognize their loyalty through personalized offers or rewards. Similarly, employees who don't feel their efforts are recognized may lack motivation, impacting their engagement and productivity. Employees are more engaged when they work on projects that align with their strengths and interests. Managers should aim to understand their team members' capabilities and aspirations to align tasks accordingly.
To promote employee engagement, you need to CARE for your people. COMMUNICATE transparently, interactively, frequently, and continuously any information that their people need and want to know. Listen empathetically to the people’s concerns, questions, and complaints. Express compassion with your recommendations and encouragement. APPRECIATE the important roles and responsibilities of their people. RECOGNIZE and offer accolades for their people’s individual accomplishments and acts of service. EMPOWER people to make the right decisions for themselves, their colleagues, and their business. When you CARE, you will enthuse and energize people to be engaged with you, their colleagues, and the business.
One of the key challenges or barriers to customer loyalty and employee engagement is the lack of alignment between them. Many businesses fail to realize that customer loyalty and employee engagement are interrelated and mutually reinforcing. When employees are engaged, they are more likely to deliver superior customer service, create positive customer impressions, and generate customer referrals. When customers are loyal, they are more likely to provide constructive feedback, appreciate employee efforts, and reduce employee stress. Therefore, to achieve alignment between customer loyalty and employee engagement, you need to ensure that both your customers and employees share a common vision, value, and culture, and that you communicate and collaborate with them regularly and effectively.
CARE (Communicate. Appreciate. Recognize. Empower) and they will CARE (Communicate. Acknowledge. Respond. Enrich) for your customers. When you create a GREAT experience for your people as much as they do for your customers, you will learn the loyalty of both. Soon, without a focus on profits, profits will grow. And everyone, your people, your customers, and your business, will be enriched, literally and figuratively.
Establish the business context for every employee’s purpose, i.e. their effect on gaps in what’s received versus promised to customers who make their salaries and budgets possible. Most employees want their work to shape the future in a meaningful way. Instill a lifetime value mindset regarding employees, internal customers, and external customers. Show them how much of their budget is being squandered by mis-steps. Everyone wants more budget for more resources, salary/bonus, hiring, and so on. Talk about what it means as an employee to receive things right the first time, and then talk about what it means to customers, and then how that, in turn, affects employees. Facilitate urgency and accountability in acting on CX and EX insights.
In my experience as a Contact Tracer employee of NORC from January 2021 through March 2022, I found the organization’s values and my values were in sync. We both value quality training, attention to detail, research with a public purpose and, perhaps most importantly, a commitment to treating research participants and coworkers with consideration and compassion. In addition, based on my reviews, I knew for sure that the organization valued my work. I believe that employees are in many ways customers too. How could my loyalty to NORC be measured now? Would I return to NORC if an appropriate position were offered? You betcha! I’m proud to spread the word that NORC is a high quality organization and a wonderful place to work.
The shift to remote work demands more from us as leaders to ensure our teams feel appreciated, valued, and connected. This is crucial for employees to serve our customers effectively. It's important to remember that employees require ten times more positive reinforcement than negative. Feedback should be sincere and specific to their actions, not just a vague 'good job'. For example, praise like 'Incredible attention to detail in your report' or 'Thank you for your commitment to your schedule' goes a long way. Let's strive to acknowledge the unique contributions of our team members. Who will you appreciate today?
Companies with high-trust cultures empower employees to prioritize customer satisfaction. They can make customer-centric decisions freely, even in unclear situations. Mistakes become learning opportunities, and the focus is on keeping customers happy. This fosters strong connections between front-line employees and customers, ultimately driving customer loyalty and advocacy.
Another key challenge or barrier to customer loyalty and employee engagement is the difficulty of measuring them accurately and consistently. Many businesses rely on traditional metrics, such as sales, retention, turnover, and satisfaction surveys, to gauge customer loyalty and employee engagement. However, these metrics may not capture the full picture of how customers and employees feel and behave, and may not reflect the impact of various factors, such as market trends, competitive actions, and external events. Therefore, to measure customer loyalty and employee engagement more comprehensively and reliably, you need to use a combination of quantitative and qualitative methods, such as net promoter score, customer lifetime value, employee net promoter score, employee advocacy score, and customer and employee feedback analysis.
Sales teams often focus on chasing the next opportunity, while onboarding teams tend to "accept" what has been passed on. Missing the context from day one, onboarding teams can show little appreciation for the account’s history, the client’s market, or how to ensure the customer gets the most from their first product. The churn rate within customer success and onboarding teams also leads to a loss of accumulated knowledge and the added burden of training new staff. Unfortunately, the average onboarding process is often driven by the service-level agreement and lacks a clear call to action. This hasty handover often results in missed opportunities to sell an adjacent product or service with speed and immediacy.
Another key challenge or barrier to customer loyalty and employee engagement is the need for constant innovation and adaptation. In the dynamic and competitive market, customer expectations and preferences are constantly evolving, and employee needs and aspirations are constantly changing. Therefore, to maintain and enhance customer loyalty and employee engagement, you need to keep up with the latest trends, technologies, and best practices, and offer new and improved products, services, and experiences that meet and exceed customer and employee demands. Moreover, you need to foster a culture of innovation and learning among your customers and employees, and encourage them to share their ideas, insights, and feedback, and co-create solutions that add value and delight.
In my experience the more you can bring the customer AND your team members into decision-making, the more successful I have been. Conversing, asking questions and most importantly using listening skills will guarantee authentic loyalty. You must address all feedback whether it is negative or positive in nature.
Customers don't "journey" over time with a "Peak-End Rule". They journey emotionally with "ow" and "WOW moments". The more ow, the more disgustingly memorable the experience, the more disloyal the customer. The more WOW, the more delightfully memorable, the more loyal the customer. When we analyze the journey, we ask, "What are the customers' expectations? What are the potential dissatisfiers and how can we remove them?" And when we ask and take action, a negative customer experience has turned into a neutral one. But that's not good enough. In addition to asking "What happened?" to your people answering customers about complaints, ask them "What if?" Satisfying customer needs and innovating customer wants will maximize the ROI of CX.
Frontline employees are the backbone of any customer loyalty program. Here's why: Customer Interaction: They directly interact with customers, hearing their frustrations and desires firsthand. Feedback Loop:They act as a crucial feedback loop, identifying what resonates with customers and what falls flat. Trigger Identification:They can pinpoint specific customer behaviours or preferences that could trigger loyalty program rewards or benefits. By empowering frontline employees to contribute ideas and supporting them with the right system, you can create a customer loyalty program that truly resonates and builds a strong customer experience.
The slowest part of building an effective customer loyalty program is often platform selection, market tendering, and aligning stakeholders and executives. Instead of getting bogged down in these processes, businesses should focus on executing with the tools they already have for a quick win. My honest opinion is that most cloud-based systems share similar core functionalities anyway and are more than capable of delivering results within 30 days. Vendor consolidation will naturally occur over time, but in the meantime, prioritising execution can offer immediate benefits.
Another key challenge or barrier to customer loyalty and employee engagement is the role of leadership and management. Many businesses suffer from poor or inconsistent leadership and management practices that undermine customer loyalty and employee engagement. For example, some leaders and managers may lack the vision, strategy, or skills to drive customer loyalty and employee engagement initiatives, or may fail to communicate or implement them effectively. Some may neglect or ignore the voice of the customer or the voice of the employee, or may fail to provide adequate support or recognition. Some may create a toxic or dysfunctional work culture that erodes trust, collaboration, and performance. Therefore, to overcome this challenge or barrier, you need to develop and empower leaders and managers who can champion customer loyalty and employee engagement, and who can inspire, motivate, and enable customers and employees to achieve their goals and potential.
Many companies are more willing to explore a customer loyalty program versus a similar program for employees. Yet it often makes good sense to engage with your employees and turn them loose! Giving your employees an internal meeting place and sounding board can help them feel heard and appreciated. This can boost morale. Additionally, you should empower your employees to create and share content on social media. Have them share with the world what their work day looks like. Pull back the curtain of working at your company. It will often be a huge boost to your company's recruiting efforts!