Customer Service Information

CEM Can Improve Customer Loyalty


'A 5 percent increase in customer retention increases profits by 25 to 95 percent.'

'The greater the loyalty of customers, employees, suppliers, and shareholders, the greater the profits reaped .'

This is the received wisdom from experts on the nature and importance of customer loyalty. Yet in a world of product and service commoditization and as the timelag between imitations to innovation declines, how can organizations differentiate themselves to build loyalty?

The answer lies with Customer Experience Management creating the 'emotional responses and connections with products and brands tha are difficult to build in any other way' . In effect marketing is not just concerned with the uniqueness of the 4 Ps and more focused on the way customers feel about you through the emotions evoked by the customer experience. Need this be surprising, or is this long overdue? after all a dictionary definition of loyalty refers to it as a 'feeling or attitude of devoted attachment and affection' .

Looking at the evidence from the services sector, the Market Metrix hotel index demonstrates this link between loyalty 'emotions', customer satisfaction and price premiums elicited by the 'experience of hotel products and services'.

'Guests who experience the loyalty emotions at midscale hotels feel these emotions and they will pay on average $10 more. If they do not feel these emotions, they will pay only about $3 more'

A recent Gallup survey further found that:

'Over a one month period shoppers whom were emotionally connected to a supermarket spent 46 percent more than shoppers who were satisfied but lacked an emotional bond'

For the New York supermarket Wegmans this emotional bond is reflected in the customer experience with well cared for employees at the frontline treating Wegmans consumers in a better and friendlier manner.

Managing the customer experience to achieve the correct emotional response for loyalty involves more than the right price or the right product and don't expect satisfaction alone to be enough. For instance, delight and anger have been noted as emotions that may link better with understanding customer emotions and loyalty.

So look at your whole customer experience and ask the question, what emotions are you evoking and will these be valuable, detrimental or could they be reengineered in such a way as to promote a loyalty inducing experience.

By Colin Shaw
Beyond Philosophy ©

Research Reference

Frederick Reicheld
Trends in the Experience and Service Economy, Professor Voss, 2004,
www.dictionary.com
Evoking Emotion, Barsky and Nash, 2002
The Price of Loyalty, National Petroleum News, March 2005
Schneider and Bowen, Sloan Management Review, 1999

Colin Shaw

is the Founding Partner of Beyond Philosophy and guru of the Customer Experience Management. He has also produced two most successful books on customer experience which are now available in market. His first book, Building Great Customer Experiences sold out within just eight weeks, is on a third reprint and available in paperback. Colin's second book, Revolutionize Your Customer Experience released in September 2004 and considered as Bible in Customer managment business world.


MORE RESOURCES:

How to Mix the Right Technology and People to get Quality Customer ...
eWeek,  NY - 16 hours ago
For Internet retailers, having friendly, knowledgeable customer service agents available to customers 24/7 can lead to a sustainable competitive advantage. ...
Contact Centers Gain Flexibility to Meet Customer Needs Through ... MarketWatch
Communications and Financial Services Companies Lead Other ... CNNMoney.com
Study Identifies Industries with Strong Perfoming Contact Centers TMCnet
TMCnet
all 24 news articles


Customer Service Specialist
Seattle Times, United States - 7 hours ago
At HealthServicesNW we value the strong relationships we have built with our clients, and the Customer Service Agent is the employee responsible for ...


Home-Based Customer Service Agents Save Average of $24000 per Year ...
MarketWatch - Jul 23, 2008
ALEXANDRIA, VA, Jul 23, 2008 (MARKET WIRE via COMTEX) -- Sending customer service agents home through homeshoring can result in individual savings of ...


Virtual Call Center Company Jumps on "Green" Bandwagon
TMCnet - Jul 23, 2008
“Time and time again, home-shored customer service agents demonstrate remarkable results,” Naylor said, “and there is no reason for any organization with an ...


Bausch & Lomb puts new CIO in charge of customer service
ZDNet - Jul 23, 2008
Eye care company Bausch & Lomb has given its CIO the customer service reins. On Wednesday, the company named Alan Farnsworth, senior vice president of ...


Court Staff Receiving Customer Service Training
Government of Jamaica, Jamaica Information Service, Jamaica - 6 hours ago
The over 700 court staff island-wide who interact with the public daily have begun to benefit from a series of customer service training workshops being ...


Bausch & Lomb Names Alan Farnsworth as Senior Vice President of ...
MarketWatch - Jul 23, 2008
In this newly created position, Mr. Farnsworth provides leadership for the company's global delivery of customer service processes, as well as for the ...


Electronics retailers say customer service is key
Colloquy.com, OH - 2 hours ago
"Across many industries, we’ve seen that the retailers that grow customer-service ratings the fastest have greater sales growth." —Chris Denove,JD Power and ...


"Excellent VOIP but terrible customer service"
BroadbandReports.com, NY - 2 hours ago
Customer Service : I have had to contact customer service on several occasions since this new service was installed. I had problems accessing the digital ...


Materials Handling World Magazine

Customer Service Survey gives excellent results
Materials Handling World Magazine, UK - 9 hours ago
The Customer Service Survey is an annual initiative as part of the company's Key Account Management Programme. This year shows the best results to date. ...

Customer-Service - Google News

home | site map
© 2006