Читать книгу The Power of Loyalty - Roger Brooks B. - Страница 7

ESSENTIAL STEP 1

Recognize That Loyalty Is All Around You; It’s EVERYWHERE Loyalty

IT’S REALLY NOT THAT COMPLICATED. Take a look around you—you are a consumer, and what you’ll read in this book is not astrophysics. It’s obvious you all know a little something about loyalty. I have lived and breathed it my entire career. It has become such a part of my being that an hour does not pass in a typical day when I’m not meeting, talking, writing, or thinking about LOYALTY.

So what is loyalty, and what is all the hype about? Adopting loyalty as a strategy is a philosophical transformation in your thinking. A loyalty mind-set is having a profound and deep belief in your product or service. Loyalty believes in your business, your employees, and your customers. Loyalty understands that there is give and take. Loyalty believes that investing in your customers will deliver return. Your loyalty strategy is a win-win proposition.

But what is the true definition of loyalty? Every company in every industry I have studied or worked with has its own. I’ll examine a variety of factors that will assist you in determining your own definition or possibly modifying your current definition of loyalty. In the end, it’s all about developing your own definition, applying that definition to your loyalty strategy, and motivating customer behavior as a means of reducing competition and increasing profits.

To better understand the basic definition of the word loyalty, let me acquaint you with its roots. According to Merriam-Webster.com, the word loyalty originates from the root word, loyal, which dates back to 1531. Below are the definitions of the words loyal and loyalty.

loy·al

1: unswerving in allegiance: as faithful to a cause, ideal, custom, institution, or product 2: showing loyalty

loy·al·ty the quality or state or an instance of being loyal

By permission. From the Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary ©2010 by Merriam-Webster, Incorporated (Merriam-Webster.com).

What a remarkable definition for the word loyal: “unswerving in allegiance” and “faithful to a cause, ideal, custom, institution, or product.” That is what you strive for every single day. You strive to win customer allegiance and faith in your brand.

So why not make things easier on yourself? Why not initiate a loyalty strategy and put the tools in place to assist you with your efforts?

When I think of the words loyal or loyalty, I also think of words such as dedication, fidelity, reliability, dependability, constancy, and steadfastness. I also think of the word loyalty when I think about how people are loyal to a particular cause, faith, sports team, family member, or spouse.

And as a consumer, it’s amazing to think about the loyalty or unswerving allegiance you have and how faithful you are to specific brands or products. Loyalty is having the nerve and courage to stand behind a product, brand, or service in both good times and bad.

Everywhere you go, everything you do, and everything you decide to spend your hard-earned money on has some connection to customer loyalty.

People buy where they feel good buying. People spend where they feel good spending. The world is your personal selection of oysters, and you only open those which you feel most loyal to and where you feel you’ll continue to find that shiny pearl you’re always eager to uncover.

Understanding the intricacies of customer loyalty and the fundamental steps needed to build a successful customer loyalty strategy is an ongoing process. It cannot be learned overnight, nor can it be taught in its entirety in this book. Understanding loyalty and what creates customer loyalty is repetition, replication, recurrence, and reiteration.

Loyalty is constantly reminding your customers that they are valued. Loyalty is repeating your message as often as you can. There is no such thing as overemphasizing the recurrence and reiteration of your loyalty message to your customers. It is in that repetition where your message is reinforced.

You have to be creative in molding the information from this book into your own business. Your customer loyalty strategy will look much different if you are in the insurance industry versus retail. You know your business best, and you’ll need to develop a strategy that fits best for your customers.

You will see later in the book that identifying your customers is the first step toward understanding who your customers are. Your industry, and to some extent the sophistication level of your systems, will dictate the ease of being able to identify your customers and in turn carry out your strategy. If you operate an online business, identifying your customers is much easier than if you operate a convenience store. Online businesses have an advantage because every customer provides an e-mail address that can be used as the loyalty identifier.

So, if you are in real estate or retail, fitness or finance, auto sales or antiques, there are basic steps you should follow to build a successful loyalty strategy. My commitment is to provide you with as much information as I can through this book series (and through my website), and save you time and money in the process.