Don’ts of the customer loyalty efforts
Hi, there!! I’ve just got back from the haircut I was telling you about the other day (on my previous article). Everybody is happy now: I am happy because the interesting conversation I had with the good-looking hairdresser, they are happy because they earned a few more bucks from me and even my wife is happy because now I look nicer. So much with the good part. The truth is there are still some things that you should NOT do if you really want to turn a regular customer into a loyal one.
Let me use the same haircut example to illustrate the don’ts of increasing the “customer lifetime value” efforts.
I used to go to a different haircut business on my neighborhood. After my third haircut there I received a discount ticket for dying my hair. As I consider myself to be still young and I am comfortable with the natural color of my hair I had to say “pass” to the bonus. So don't give an incentive or reward to a valued customer that is useless to him or make it difficult to use.
First time when I went there I was asked to fill in a form with a lot of what I consider to be “private information”. Every time I went there I had to spend a lot of time filling in different forms so that they could “offer me better services” by tracking me down. Useless to say I got the same haircut all the time! So don’t commit these pet peeves: pop-up advertising, registration log-on pages, software installation, and slow-loading pages.
I was happy when I saw that every person that opened their door received a ticket for quite an interesting drawing. The prize was huge plasma screen and that explained why so many people kept getting in, wait a few minutes and then find themselves some lousy excuses to get out without a haircut, but holding in their hands another drawing ticket. So don’t offer fabulous prizes to sign up. While this might seem like a nice gesture, you'll end up with subscribers whose motivation is to win a prize, not to learn about useful information, your company and/or your products.
One day I asked them to send me some information about how to treat your hair in winter. Next thing I know the mail box wasn’t big enough to store all those dozens of brochures they sent me weekly. I could hardly find my utility bills or bank statements. So don’t deluge your subscribers with too many emails.
I decided to stop going there and find myself another hairdresser when I start finding in my mail box dozens of brochures with detailed instructions on how to treat infantile hemangiomas or other rare skin diseases. So always take care of the content relevancy and don’t get beyond subscriber’s expectations.
It’s hard to believe that they didn’t see how easy it would have been to keep me as their long-term customer! The only thing they should have done is watch other similar business to see what they are doing well. So don’t live in a vacuum. Continually view, read and explore how other companies-from competitors and partners, to businesses in completely different industries-work their customer’s loyalty building efforts.
Consumer loyalty is hard-won these days, not only because rewards programs have become mear commodities, but because success depends on doing the right things and shrugging off old, bad habits. See you next time!
Antonel Neculai
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