What’s Love Got To Do With It?

Written by JoAnna Brandi


Customer Loyalty, we all want it. Don’t we?

Some people say it’s dead - they say that customers are fickle, that they don’t want loyalty, that they just wantrepparttar lowest price andrepparttar 104572 fastest way to get it. Some say that customers have changed and thatrepparttar 104573 pursuit of loyalty is foolish, since it’srepparttar 104574 customers that are not interested in it. I don’t agree. Loyalty is not DEAD, it’s just sleeping.

I agree that customers have changed (because our needs have changed). We’re more demanding than ever before, we have more choices than ever before, we’re more educated than most ofrepparttar 104575 companies we do business with (about their products and their competitive position). And here’srepparttar 104576 truth: we don’t give our loyalty to companies that don’t give their loyalty to us.

Companies have inrepparttar 104577 last ten years made it more difficult, more confusing, and more frustrating to deal with them than ever before. They give allrepparttar 104578 "special offers" torepparttar 104579 new customers; they’ve removed human beings from answering phones and answering questions. They make us pump our own gas, check on our packages, book our own airline tickets and figure out when they’ve made mistakes on our accounts. They cut their training budgets and have trimmed their service staffs torepparttar 104580 bone. They pay big bonuses atrepparttar 104581 top, but atrepparttar 104582 bottom ofrepparttar 104583 corporate pyramid, whererepparttar 104584 customers lie (if they makerepparttar 104585 pyramid at all) they charge us fees forrepparttar 104586 privilege of using their services!

Is it no wonder we’ve become rather selective to whom we pledge our loyalty?

No, customer loyalty is not dead, but it is ailing. It is given only to those companies that earn it and keep earning it by delivering value and positive experiences on a consistent basis.

Companies that want to Thrive...not just survive in this century better figure out fast that keeping more of their customers, and keeping them happy is a critical economic necessity.

Good and loyal customers are critical to profitability. Estimates are that it costs 6 - 30 times more to get new customers than it does to maintainrepparttar 104587 ones you have. If you keep losing customers and have to keep replacing them, it makes sense that you are spending money on sales and marketing that could be going elsewhere.

It’s your LOYAL customers that give you referrals and sing your praises in your advertising and testimonials. Referral business is like "free" new customers. Sorepparttar 104588 money you would have paid to GETrepparttar 104589 new customer drops back down to your bottom line.

I find it is sadly true that most companies don’t have a strategic plan for keeping customers, keeping them happy OR keeping them coming back time and time again with their money and their friends. Even though Customer Loyalty was determined to be a #1 concern of CEO’s (according torepparttar 104590 Conference Board) how many companies do more than pay lip service torepparttar 104591 importance of customer service and loyalty in their organization? Your guess is as good as mine. Based onrepparttar 104592 service I receive as a customer, well, I can understand why more customers aren’t loyal, can you?

What can YOU do to change that? What can you do to turnrepparttar 104593 tide on this disturbing trend and develop long lasting, loyal customer relationships?

And what’s LOVE got to do with it?

Everything. Business is based on relationships and relationships are based on qualities such as trust, respect, appreciation, understanding, generosity, clear open and honest communication and heavy doses of kindness, compassion and affection. Sometimes known as LOVE.

Studies show thatrepparttar 104594 main reason customers will leave a company they are doing business with is that they perceiverepparttar 104595 company does not care about them or their needs. And conversely, studies show that when asked why they stay loyal to a particular company for a long time, customers respond, "Because they cared about me." This perception and feeling of caring isrepparttar 104596 emotional bridge between customer satisfaction and customer loyalty. And, it’s oftenrepparttar 104597 bridge between lackluster profits and thriving good health onrepparttar 104598 bottom line.

It's about emotion. Loyalty is an emotional attachment to a company based onrepparttar 104599 customer’s subjective perception thatrepparttar 104600 company is deliveringrepparttar 104601 value they desire or need, when and how they need it. It’s based on their needs, and it’s based on their experience of doing business with us. As a customer myself, I know thatrepparttar 104602 companies I chose to give my loyalty to are those that make me feel good aboutrepparttar 104603 whole experience of doing business with them.

When we FEEL good about doing business with a company we form emotional ties, not just financial ties with them. Let’s face it, customers are emotionally attached to their money - if we want them to give some of it to us-we need to get them emotionally attached to US.

The War against Spam goes on

Written by Judi Singleton


Turns outrepparttar biggest problem in fightingrepparttar 104571 war against spam has beenrepparttar 104572 giant battle lines drawn between allrepparttar 104573 participants. Forrepparttar 104574 most part, marketers, email broadcast firms, ISPs, and filter program firms rarely speak to each other. We all heard that people onrepparttar 104575 "other side" thought of us as bad guys, and we focused on how to get around them.

In trying to stoprepparttar 104576 barrage of viagra ads and porno ad has unfortunately interfered with legitimate e-zine publishers, because we're caught inrepparttar 104577 anti-spam crossfire. If you publish any type of e-mail publication, there's a likely chance that your e-zine is NOT reaching a portion of your readers. Why? Their Internet service provider (ISP) or e-mail program uses a spam filter.

These software programs search for words and phrases that are typical of spam and assign each incoming e-mail a "score." If your e-mail has too many of these words and phrases, you receive a high score, and you may be blocked.

This of course is hurting my business as I publish several ezines but I think perhaps there is another issue here. The freedom to choose who I get email from. My isp is deciding not only who I can send to but who I get email from by some spam score system. I feel this violates my rights as an individual. I have a right to receive my mail. I am just as irritated asrepparttar 104578 next guy withrepparttar 104579 vigara ads andrepparttar 104580 porno ads, but in trying to filter these out we have given our rights as business owners and individuals torepparttar 104581 isp's.

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