When you look at the company budget – do you spend equal dollars on marketing for new customers as you do servicing your existing customers? When the economy started to tank, one of the first things companies pulled was training. The focus on customer service shifted from having importance to a “nice to have.” I [...]

How do you build a relationship with someone? You often have to put their needs ahead of yours. That is true in a relationship with your significant other, a best friend, your parents, and your kids. It is also true with our customers. If we put them first in all we do – the customer [...]

I feel strongly about developing relationships with customers which I believe, in turn, develops loyalty; customers who remember, refer and return. So I’m often on the look out for other’s opinions on the topic.  This morning I read a post by Susan Abbott entitled Loyalty or Loyalty Programs: There is a Difference. She gives a great [...]

I’m facing a conundrum.   The other day I put out a question asking how we put customers first in our business and asked these questions: How important is customer loyalty? Do you measure the percent of returning customers? Do you have training programs in place that reinforce a “Put Customers First” culture?  I have received some [...]

Susan Oakes of M4B Marketing asked nine business owners their thoughts on customer loyalty in her post Top Tips to Keep Your Customers Loyal. Each participant had a different take on the theme and yet all were very similar.  The main theme: Treat your customers as people – treat them as you’d like to be treated.  [...]

COSE (Council of Smaller Enterprises) is an amazing organization – one of the largest of its kind supporting small business entrepreneurs in the country.  I am proud to be a member and have attended many of the great workshops, coffee conversations and seminars offered through COSE.  One of the reasons I joined was so that [...]

The game is afoot in the grocery store business.  For the better part of three years Giant Eagle has been building business loyalty by offering consumers a 10 cent a gallon gas discount for every $50 spent when you buy gas at one of their approved stations.  Easy.  Spend $50 get 10 cents off every [...]

I believe in customer loyalty.  In fact, I have a speech – my most popular speech – entitled Earning Customer Loyalty.  So imagine my surprise when I was reading a recent edition of Advertising Age and found the article entitled:  Why Customer Loyalty Isn’t as Valuable as You Think” by Hamish Pringle and Peter Field. [...]

I was just reading a post of Zach Heller’s entitled Why Joke with Your Customers.  It was an April Fool’s Day post – the classic day for jokesters but he brings up a good point when he talks about having fun with your customers: What is the point of playing a joke on people who [...]

I’m on vacation.  I’ve been looking forward to this week for more than half a year.  A cabin in the Smokey Mountains of Gatlinburg, TN.  Reconnecting with nature that fuels my creative juices so that I can write my next book: Make or Break Moments: Revolutionizing Customer Relationships.   The website pictures look enticing – [...]