7 rules to increase your customers loyalty.

1. 7 PRINCIPLES to Increase Customer Loyalty
1.Know Yourself.
2. Follow the Golden Rule.
3. Establish a personal relationship.
4. Build a reputation for reliability.
5. Deliver first-class Customer Service.
6. Handle Complaint Management Well.
7. Loyalty Programs.
1st Principle:Know Yourself
One way to differentiate yourself from the competition is to
increase your understanding of what your customers
experience when they interact with your business. This opens
up avenues for making effective improvements and innovations
to your services or products. And a powerful tool to boost your
understanding of that customer experience is G.W.R.‘s
Customer Journey Map (CJM), documenting the customer
experience through their perspective, helping you best
understand how customers are interacting with you now and
helping you identify areas for improvement moving forward.
Don’t make it too complex.
It is easy to get caught up in the multiple routes a customer
might take, resulting in “Analysis Paralysis”. The CJM is a tool to
help you easily understand customers so tell a simple story to
focus people’s attention on the customer’s needs.

2. Use a memorable format.
Whether you use an infographic, a storyboard or even a video
for your CJM, the goal is to ensure that the user’s story remains
front and center in people’s minds, highlighting their needs,
questions and feelings throughout their interaction with the
organization.
Be very clear about what the journey map will be used for.
Determine what your primary business objective is for creating
a CJM (improve your current customer experience, envision
your future customer experience, drive organizational change)
and keep your strategic goals in the forefront to guide you in
your employment of journey maps.
Include Metrics.
Simply mapping the journey isn’t enough; you need metrics to
use the CJM to improve market performance. Depending on
your business and insights that are produced, include critical
metrics at each stage along the customer journey that you can
use later to assess improvements in your performance.
Take action.
Journey maps aren’t meant to be purely illustrative. They
should identify a few quick fixes, including opportunities to
boost enjoyment and improve the journey, and lead to specific
actions that improve the experience and drive the ROI to justify
the effort and increase internal support.

3. Benchmark.
Once you have established a CJM for your business, it is worth
benchmarking your performance against the competition to
uncover opportunities to differentiate yourself, giving you the
competitive edge.
“Customer journeys are 30%-40% more predictive of
customer satisfaction than touchpoints.” McKinsey
2nd Principle: Follow the Golden Rule: Treat Others as You
Would like to be treated.
This seems self-evident, but as the size of your business
increases, along with your distance from the front lines, how
can you ensure that your customers are being treated in a
manner that keeps them coming back?
The best way to discover how to treat a customer is to be one.
Many multinationals include “Market Visits” and “Home Visits”
in their executives’ monthly calendars. Plan regular visits to
competitors’ outlets, recording your impressions of what they
are doing well, and what can be improved. See what take-home
messages can be implemented to improve your Customer
Experience.
Don’t assume your employees care about your customers,
build employee loyalty.
Make employees invested in your success through reward
schemes, training & team building. And don’t forget the

4. personal touch; take the time to get to know employees on a
personal level with "pulse check" conversations and gestures
they will appreciate such as sending flowers if they’ve had a
baby. If you’re loyal to your employees, they’ll feel good about
their jobs and pass that loyalty along to your customers.
Train employees thoroughly.
Investing in training employees increases their loyalty to you
and improves Customer Service. Make sure that your staff
understands everything they can about your products and
service, including old standbys that just keep selling, and
periodically hold “refresher” sessions.
“Every contact we have with a customer influences
whether or not they’ll come back. We have to be great
every time or we’ll lose them.” Kevin Stirtz
3rd Principle: Establish a Personal Relationship with Each
Individual Customer
Strong customer relationships drive sales, sustainability, and
growth. Companies that build and maintain deep customer and
client relationships lead the pack. Aim to become their “First
Call” - customers should have your company “Top of Mind”
when they are planning a project, a purchase or just need help.
Make a personal connection.
Customers remember the first and last moments of their
interaction with you far more than anything that happens in
the middle, so make sure you say Hello and Goodbye, address

5. customers by name and encourage your employees to
introduce themselves to customers. This kind of treatment
makes people feel important and respected, and is one of the
reasons they’ll return to your business. Forbes conducted a
study of consumers’ buying behavior after manipulating only
the way they were greeted (2011). One group was welcomed
with a friendly smile the other with a straight face. Not
surprisingly, the smile group bought more items and paid more
for each one.
Communicate with your customers.
Collect customer contact info and don’t forget to use it! Reach
out to your customers regularly, updating them on promotions
and new items. If there’s a social media element to your
business, invite people to your page or website and keep that
online element fresh. All of your messages don’t need to be
advertising — some can be useful information or can serve the
community.
Use various customer feedback channels.
No one denies the usefulness of candid, insightful customer
feedback, use the following to get consistent (and high quality)
feedback from current and prospective customers: Empower
customer-facing employees: Create a culture in which your
employees are always looking and listening, and, at the right
time, are empowered to act. Social Media: Be sure to monitor
your business profile across all sites so you can address any
negative comments or thank posters for positive feedback. As
well as Facebook and Twitter, don’t forget to include industry
specific social media like Yelp, Foursquare, Google+,
TripAdvisor…

6. Hire a third-party customer feedback provider.
Well designed Customer Satisfaction Surveys yield greater
actionable insights. G.W.R. creates customer surveys that ask
the right questions and are optimized enough to get high
survey response rates.
Respond.
Once feedback starts coming in, you need to respond. Every
last piece of feedback should get a response, even if you have
no idea what the customer is talking about.
“The more you engage with customers, the clearer
things become and the easier it is to determine what
you should be doing.” John Russell, President, Harley-Davidson
4th Principle: Build a Reputation for Reliability
While an intangible concept, having a good reputation can
benefit a business in a multitude of ways including: consumer
preference; support for an organization in times of crisis or
controversy; and the future value of an organization in the
marketplace.
Organizations can build their reputations in a number of ways:
Establish trust.

7. Keeping your word no matter what in terms of providing
services, paying vendors when they are due, and keeping
promises to customers. This will help solidify and build
credibility with customers.
Be responsive.
Return calls and answer emails promptly, letting the customer
know their importance to you and your organization.
Resolve errors and mistakes.
Never make excuses or place blame on the customer if it is an
issue that is the fault of you or the company. An irate customer
can become your biggest ally if you make an effort to resolve
errors or mistakes as quickly as possible.
Offer value.
Offering free services to loyal customers and paying attention
to details and preferences of the customer can go a long way
towards establishing your company’s reputation in the market.
Be sensitive to privacy.
With rampant identity theft and hacking, being aware of the
sensitive nature of financial information is more important than
ever.
Become technologically savvy .
Demonstrating a proficiency in technology can add to the
reputation of a company and is critical to being perceived as a

8. competent and capable business. Computers, software,
voicemail, websites, and social media sites must be kept up to
date.
Communicate effectively and transparently. Correspondence
such as letters, emails, voicemails and other methods of
communication should be direct and to the point. Use correct
spelling and grammar and leave contact information for the
customer and company information such as full name, address,
phone, fax, website URL, toll-free number, hours and other vital
information – is displayed in prominent location.
Maintain a polished and professional website.
Having a clean, up-to-date, professional website is absolutely
vital today, regardless of the type or size of business.
Community Service.
Generosity to local organizations such as non-profits can go a
long way toward building and establishing the reputation of
your organization. Community service can include providing a
service pro bono or donating money, time or food for an event
or fundraiser.
5th Principle: Deliver First-Class Customer Service
Customers remember being treated well and positive customer
experiences result in repeat business. Additionally, according to
Forbes, 71% of customers that leave a business do so after a
bad customer service experience. The essence of good
customer service is forming a relationship with customers. The

9. points below are easily implemented in any size of business,
and should show immediate results.
Go the extra mile to meet customer needs.
Often simply doing the little things, and occasionally pulling out
the stops to service your customer provides that customer with
the extra mile. » Rather than give your customer another
number to call – do a warm call transfer. » Don’t just tell your
customer where to find something, walk them to it. » Ask if
there is anything else you can do for your customer. » Check
back with your customer to see that they have found
everything they needed/ their problem has been solved. »
Don’t give up. Maybe you can’t find what they’re looking for.
Propose alternative solutions, even if there isn’t a satisfactory
conclusion, they’ll remember your investment & effort.
Be flexible with policies.
Do everything within reason to solve customer problems or
complaints. Since the 1980s at the Ritz-Carlton each staff
member has a $2,000 discretionary fund per guest, which is
used to solve any customer complaint in a manner entirely
decided upon by the employee, giving staff the decision-making
freedom in order to create an amazing customer experience.
Have generous return policies.
Zappos found that having a generous 365-day return policy
actually increased their sales resulting in an average 150%
higher spending by Zappos customers.

10. Be quick to reply.
Make sure you give timely responses to questions and
concerns. By responding quickly, you can actually increase
loyalty.
Provide content as customer service. Nothing is more
frustrating to customers than confusion over how to use your
product. Many customer retention issues can be avoided by
proactively offering resources to help customers navigate your
product immediately after they buy it. Guides and video
tutorials are one level of support; another is offering training
services or consultations after a purchase.
6th Principle: Handle Complaint Management Well
No business is perfect, and mistakes will happen. Pay attention
to customer concerns and complaints. By letting you know
when they’re dissatisfied, your customers give you an
opportunity to resolve their issue and to improve your service.
If you do it well, your customers will remember your positive
and helpful approach and they can be turned into a highly loyal
customer. If you do it badly, Social Media has opened up a
whole different means for customers to share their
dissatisfaction with the world.
Don’t get defensive and don’t shift the blame. When an issue
does arise, acknowledge it, apologize, and address it as quickly
as possible.

11. Be glad.
Maintain an upbeat and positive attitude toward your
customers when they are complaining. Research shows that for
every customer who bothers to complain, nearly 26 others
remain silent (White House Office of Consumer Affairs); they
simply leave and buy from your competitors. You have an
opportunity here to turn a dissatisfied customer into a
passionate advocate for your brand.
Make it easy to complain.
Make sure that there’s a clear and accessible way for
customers to communicate with you, whether it’s in person, by
phone, or by email, and that you have someone assigned to
customer service on an ongoing basis. Encourage customers to
give you feedback through in-store forms, contact forms online,
a CS hotline and frontline staff.
Don’t hide behind technology.
Make sure that you clearly communicate to customers how
they can get a real person to help them if they want. Not being
able to reach a live person is the No. 1 complaint about
customer service, according to a new survey by Consumer
Reports.
Solve the problem quickly.
Research indicates that customers prefer the person they are
speaking with to instantly solve their problem. Use metrics like
“time to first response” and “time to resolution” to make sure
you’re giving timely responses to questions and concerns.
According to RightNow, the number one reason customers stop
doing business with a company is a poor customer service

12. experience, with 55% stating that issues weren’t resolved in a
timely manner.
Silence is not golden.
Even if you haven’t managed to solve the problem yet, regular
updates will assure your customers that you haven’t forgotten
them and by keeping them updated, you can avoid frustration
and actually increase loyalty.
“If your customer goes home mad it is not only too
late, but they will tell many people THEIR STORY. But if
you can catch them and correct the error, now they're
possiblytelling YOUR STORY!” Jake Poore, Walt Disney
Company
7th Principle: Loyalty Programs
Having an effective loyalty program in place gives you the
ability to identify, track, and custom promote to those
customers who are most likely to become loyal, long-term
sources of revenue. This is true only for those programs that
have been drafted with great thought and after a good deal of
research. If you are looking at launching a customer loyalty
program in the near future, these tips will help you develop a
successful one.
Don’t assume you know what they want.
Avoid misreading customers by focusing on actual customer
behavior. Use data from your Loyalty Schemes and web-
analytics to analyze customers’ past and present behavior to

13. better predict their future behavior and strategize accordingly.
IBM’s customer relationship study of 2011 shows how wrong
companies can be about what their customers are thinking. A
majority of companies listed discounts and purchases among
the least important reasons customers followed them on social
sites, but the customers themselves listed discounts and
purchases as the major reasons for following a company on a
social site.
Pilot programs help refine strategies.
Avoid rushing into a loyalty program without understanding
what is best for your business, Pilot Test different types of
programs in the initial months to see what works best for your
customers. Testing and tenement are key to developing a
product that will appeal to your best customers.
Make it easy for your customers.
Make it easy for customers to sign-up for your loyalty program
and give them options of how they would like to access it (card,
mobile, POS, web). Prior to the national rollout of their
Balance® Rewards program, Walgreens implemented a new
POS system that provided customers with paperless enrolment,
eased the sign-up process and was crucial to the success of the
program. On day one, Walgreens had just short of one million
members enrolled. Members currently have the choice of
using their Balance® Rewards card, the mobile app or the POS
terminal to access their program upon checkout.

14. Give them a head start.
The closer people get to completing a goal, the more effort
they exert toward achieving that goal. Even artificial progress
has an impact on consumer motivation because it gives
customers the feeling that they have already surpassed the
most challenging aspect — getting started. No matter what you
choose to do for advancement, make sure the reason for the
bonus is well-defined. People won’t be swayed by artificial
advancement if they don’t know why they’ve received the extra
boost in the first place.
Conclusion
As markets become increasingly more competitive, scale, user
acquisition, and marketing can’t be the only basket in which
you keep all your eggs. Marketing may get your name out
there, but will people stick around? Will first-time customers
turn into loyal, long term advocates?
As I have shown, Customer Loyalty matters if you want your
business to be more than just another statistic. I hope you use
my 7 Principles to create a customer experience that delights
customers, gets them talking about you and allows your
business to thrive.