My 5 Step Formula for Building Loyal Bonds with Your Customers

Building loyalty among your customers is the most difficult task you will face as a marketer. This is primarily true because it takes a lot of hard work by everyone in the organization and often this includes areas that are not under a marketer’s control. Therefore, it takes a commitment from top management to make customer loyalty a priority.

I’ve often heard it said that you can tell a lot about an organization by how they deal with their customers. If your organization has clear opportunities to improve the loyalty of its customers, and it probably does, then it’s up to you to demonstrate to top management exactly how this improvement will ultimately translate into long term success.

The most important thing you must accept as a marketer is that building loyalty is not just a customer service issue. If you want to compete in the future, you must be serious about transforming your business, and here’s why...

Chances are, both you and your CEO were taught a great deal about the four P’s of marketing: product, price, place and promotion. Unfortunately, it’s only been recently that marketers have learned to appreciate the fifth P - people. In our post World War II economy, there was a seemingly unending demand for goods and services and an apparently infinite number of potential new customers. Businesses could lose customers knowing that there would always be new ones to take their place.

But those days are gone. We must fall out of love with our products and processes, and we must fall in love with our customers! In today’s world, information is everywhere and products are easy to get. People in developed countries don’t care about products - they care about solutions! In the Information Age, a product is a way of packaging solutions. If we are to be successful at providing solutions, then we must rethink our whole approach to marketing.

I’d like to introduce you to the concept of The Nine C’s. Sure, you can’t totally forget about the long-established four P’s, but I encourage you to incorporate this new paradigm into your daily outlook.

1. Communications - Are your communications unique and do they establish your competitive advantage, or are you doing unconscious philanthropic advertising for your competitor?

2. Convenience - Today’s customer is energy-starved and time-deprived. Convenience is now a necessity, not a luxury.

3. Comprehension - We have to comprehend our customer’s needs and be immediately comprehensible in articulating the solutions we offer.

4. Clarity - With the complexity of today’s world, people are more receptive to clear solutions. Clarity carries the promise of peace of mind in an increasingly chaotic world.

5. Compression - Time deprivation has combined with technology to compress the patience and attention spans of our customers.

6. Customization - Customers not only expect solutions, they expect solutions customized to fit their individual needs.

7. Consistency - Now more than ever, building a brand is customer service and building loyalty is a stress reduction strategy. Better to deliver B+ service consistently, then A+ on Monday and C- on Wednesday.

8. Collaboration - We must combine our efforts with our customers and produce solutions together, transforming the traditional consumer/producer relationship into partners with mutual interests.

9. Contingency - Customers today know they have a choice. Customer complaints are higher than ever, even though companies are paying more attention to quality. If you mishandle things, the customer will defect. But if the problem is fixed expeditiously, the customer/company bond will be stronger than before.

I hope that you will keep The Nine C’s in mind when you develop your next marketing strategy, and especially when you apply my formula for building bonds with your customers. My formula basically denotes the stages your customer goes through as the bonding process matures, and is as follows:

AWARENESS • IDENTITY • DIALOGUE • COMMUNITY • ADVOCACY

The first stage is AWARENESS. This occurs the first time that your customer became aware of your existence. This could be the first time he or she sees your promotion, or a news article about you or hears about you from a friend. Obviously this initial stage is important, because if you never reach this potential customer you have no way of continuing further. However, this stage is usually very short, because as soon as this potential customer begins to form opinions about you, he is into the next stage of IDENTITY.

Most exposures you control or certainly know about as the marketer, but some you do not. Clearly, when you put out a mailing there will be some recipients who have never heard of your company or your products. But, in this case, you control the message. If one of your current or former customers mentions you to friends, relatives, co-workers, you really have little control over how you are presented. In the case of a promotion, ask yourself, if this promotion was the first and only knowledge you as a potential customer have, what would your impression be of the company, its products or services and its marketing?

First, does your promotion properly communicate to a potential customer so they comprehend your solution(s) for them? Have you been clear and concise? (Remember the nine C’s.) If so, what opinions do you think they will have? Are these opinions a foundation to build a strong bond of loyalty with this potential customer? Keep in mind; the primary goal of your promotion is to get the response or the sale. I’m not suggesting that you must tell prospects all about your company history, philosophy, it’s products, etc. (although sometimes these things are important enough to include in a promotion). What is important is to begin to build the foundation for loyalty.

For example, in the next section we will explore different guarantee approaches. This is a great place to start to build a positive identity. If you clearly stand behind your products (a lifetime guarantee, backed by your president) and want to make it easy for customers to deal with you (here’s our toll free number, if for any reason, no questions asked, etc.), the foundation for a positive identity will be achieved.

Once your prospect responds, we move into the next stage, DIALOGUE. All of your actions (or inactions), and those of your customers, whether verbal or written, contribute to this dialogue. If a responder calls your 800 number, how many times does it ring? Will they be put on hold? Will this experience be a positive one? Will you attempt to provide any other solutions for them? Will you express appreciation for their business? Will you give them a special 800# and the name of a representative to call if there’s ever a question or problem? How quickly will you get them the product or welcome package? Do you offer overnight delivery? Do you solicit their opinions on a regular basis? Is the customer always right, even when they’re wrong?

We’ve discussed a great deal about the collecting and tracking of information about your customers. These activities are all part of dialogue as well. When a customer actively tells you his opinions, preferences or other information about himself, or passively, does not respond to your follow up offers — you’d better listen. To use our earlier example, don’t send an offer for rap music to a customer who has told you their preference is classical.

During your entire relationship with your customer there is a dialogue going on. If you adopt The Nine C’s as part of your business principles that serve to guide your dialogue with customers, you will have no problem building further bonds.

To achieve the highest level of loyalty, part of your message to customers should include building the bond of COMMUNITY. Most of us have an inherent need to belong and feel as if we are part of a group that thinks as we do. It’s important, therefore, for you to let customers know that there are many others out there like them, and they are part of something (your company) that is the solution for so many. Share letters from customers, show pictures of satisfied users, etc. This aspect of bonding is most obvious with Associations. Becoming part of a familiar group is the primary emotional reason members join. Most can quote the membership total of their association at any given time and are usually very active in recruiting new members. Which brings us to the pinnacle of customer loyalty...

If you work hard and have successfully brought your customers through the first four stages of bonding, then the final stage should be practically automatic. You will then achieve the ultimate in customer loyalty --ADVOCACY, where your customers are actively recruiting new customers for you! It’s every marketer’s dream to have unsolicited, in other words, FREE business come through the door, and it can happen for you with a total company commitment to the nine C’s and attention to each of the stages of customer bonding.

Proceed to Chapter 9...