The Loyalty Revolution

Here, in our first installment of this new-for-2022 EB column series—a refresh of our popular The Consumer Connection column—we dig into the mindset of today’s pandemic-changed consumer to reveal how ECPs can connect, successfully.

Covid has reset the clock. On life. On business. And, of course, on shopping.

The biggest challenge today? Getting consumers to return…again and again.

How do you measure success? Sales? Revenue? Profit? They are all important.

“However, the measurement you should watch like a hawk is: Does the customer come back? This is the most overlooked metric today,” explains customer service and experience expert Shep Hyken.

Hyken is a New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestselling author as well as founder and chief amazement officer of Shepard Presentations in St. Louis, MO. In September, he released his eighth book, “I’ll Be Back,” in which he lays out tools and tactics to reconnect and get consumers to come back. That’s only part of the picture, however.

The best way to sustain growth, Hyken explains, is to turn repeat customers into loyal ones. And that’s what he shares here—four strategies for reconnecting and turning consumers into long-term customers.

TIP #1
Happiness or Behavior?

“There are lots of customer service metrics, like the Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT). The problem? They focus on happiness, but don’t tell you about behavior.”

HOW TO RECONNECT:

Hyken advises that businesses should be looking at what percent of the customer base makes a repeat purchase over a given time.

“This is the measurement that really matters...whether customers come back, how often they make a repeat purchase,” he says. “Talk to your most reliable repeat customers and find out what made them decide to do business with you again.”

TIP #2
Empathy Starts Inside.

“What’s felt inside is felt outside. If our internal culture fosters engagement and empathy, that translates to the outside.”

HOW TO RECONNECT:

Empower your employees and help create loyalty.

“When trained, staff should be encouraged to break tradition when appropriate,” says Hyken. “Schedule a regular loyalty huddle and make it personal. Talk to the team about loyalty and engagement principles, maybe once a week for 10 minutes.”

TIP #3
No Friction, Please.

Hyken urges you to ask yourself: What activities and processes add needless friction to the customer experience? What friction could you remove to keep customers from drifting to the competition?

HOW TO RECONNECT:

“Companies and employees create friction and kill loyalty through bad policies, duplicate paperwork, cumbersome technology, broken anything, inconsistent information, making customers wait, and anything that wastes their time,” says Hyken. “Continually be on the lookout for ways to remove friction. It’s a way of running a business, not a one-time activity.”

TIP #4
The “I’ll Be Back” Process.

This process of connecting with customers isn’t just for front-line personnel.

“It’s a series of conversations that could take several days and involve people from multiple areas.”

HOW TO RECONNECT:

To connect with consumers, Hyken urges businesses to focus on what makes them unique.

Some of his favorite best practices?

“Create a brief, memorable statement of purpose; listen carefully to the customer and make sure you’ve fixed their problem; hire for nice first and train as necessary; notice familiar customers and engage with them; do a little research to make a customer’s experience extra special; find a higher purpose you believe in and that customers can believe in; remove friction; every so often send customers a handwritten or hand-signed note.”

The goal? Turning first-time customers into repeat customers and repeat customers into loyal ones. “So, go ahead,” concludes Hyken. “Start your own loyalty revolution!”