They also expect your product or service to represent value for money. If I buy an expensive pair of winter boots I expect them to keep out cold and wet and also look good. Naturally if I was to buy a cheaper pair I wouldn't expect them to last as long. Customers expect your after-sales service to be efficient. If my new winter boots start to leak when I wear them for first time, then I expect shop to replace them immediately.

However, none of this will make customers loyal or cause them to tell others how good you are. They take this core service as a given. You wouldn't see me running around telling people that my new winter books didn't leak. This is Second and most important point -

What customers really - really - really want and what will make them loyal to your business and say wonderful things about you to other people are:

1 Warm and friendly responses - When customers make contact with you face to face or over telephone, they want a warm response. It can still be businesslike but you and your people need to look and sound - friendly and likeable.

(This may all sound like common sense to you but think about these factors next time you're a customer and ask yourself if the're happening to you. Then ask yourself if your customers or clients are experiencing this from you and your people)

2 They want to feel important - They know that you have lots of other customers and clients but they just love it when you make them feel special.

h) Group Structure. There is much confusion as which group structure (or combination of structures) maximises creative output. Workshop leaders randomly seem to make people work alone, in pairs, or in small or large groups. Each combination has strong arguments for and against:

i)The individual working alone can be very creative; after all, many people who are acknowledged to have made great contributions to society have worked alone. ii)Pairs reduce path dependency and enhance intellectual cross-pollination that limits individual. iii)Many successful enterprises grow rapidly in early stages, when there are only a small team of people working together. iv)Large groups benefit from massive intellectual cross-pollination but introduce politicking, core and peripheral groups, a dilution of ideas and more negatives.

i) The degree of knowledge input has a significant effect on output. There are three types of knowledge input:

i)Tacit knowledge. That experience which results from a natural life-long interest and curiosity in many subjects and experiences. ii)Depth versus Breadth. Can someone with limited knowledge of a field make a significant contribution to it? Does excess knowledge cause blinkered vision? iii)Networks and Collaboration. Importing competencies from networks and collaboration overcomes path dependency and parochialism and allows greater frame breaking.