Customer loyalty is one of the most overlooked assets businesses have. Most businesses, from small to large companies, do not incorporate earning, maintaining and expanding customer loyalty into their business strategies. This is a big mistake! Earning and expanding customer loyalty is the best path to achieving business sustainability and stability with minimal investment and risk. Most businesses try to incent earning customer loyalty through awarding perks, loyalty points and discounts to keep customers coming back. Unfortunately, these methods of incenting loyalty usually do not result in long term customer loyalty that translates to referral business, repeat sales in the long term, and improved brand value. As soon as there are fewer, or no more perks, points or discounts available, the customer is at great risk in moving on to a competitor that has lower prices, or better perks, or more points, or deeper more frequent discounts. Real sustainable customer loyalty has three common elements that make it a business and brand asset that can be counted on and leveraged; 1) the customer is a true believer regardless of the incentives used to gain their loyalty, 2) the customer can always count on the best value, quality, solutions, technology and service the company consistently offers, and 3) the customer is a true advocate of the business’s brand and will create or participate in a movement or following actively promoting the business, it’s brands, products and services. The incentives can act as a method for customers to “put their big toe in the water,” however, consistently delivering the best products and services that thrill them and never disappoint customers is how you cement, maintain and expand their loyalty, and get them to “swim the extra mile”. The best methods to make true loyal customers are through providing extreme value, always being several steps ahead of the competition relative to product or service capability, customer service, quality, technology, reliability and competitive pricing, and most of all, listening to the customers, giving them what they want, when they want it. Every business should incorporate into their strategies methods for creating, maintaining and expanding true customer loyalty if they want to claim they are the “best.” If a business is successful in achieving a substantial percentage of truly loyal customers, those customers might be the most valuable asset a business has.
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