Читать книгу The Power of Loyalty - Roger Brooks B. - Страница 9

The root of loyalty understands that loyalty is reciprocal. Loyalty is not one-sided. There is give and take with loyalty. You first have to demonstrate your loyalty to your customers before they will reciprocate by giving their loyalty in return. You have to prove that through each part of your business you are sincere about earning their trust. Practice consistency in everything you do, and you’ll be on your way to earning the trust of your customers.

Encouraging your customers to choose you repeatedly over the competition is a marketing challenge that many organizations face. Differentiating yourself by enhancing your customers’ buying experience can go a long way toward winning their long-term loyalty.

Typically, loyalty strategies are designed to identify who your customers are in order to track their activity and aim to change their purchasing behavior so they become more profitable to your bottom line.

Loyalty strategies can have many shapes, sizes, and meanings, but there are FIVE main principles of the loyalty cycle, which always remain constant. It is indeed a cycle as the process of each principle is never-ending.

1. Identify Customers

2. Track Spending

3. Motivate Behavior

4. Reward Performance

5. Measure Results

Sophisticated customers today watch their spending closely and expect more in return. Given a choice, they would rather spend their hard-earned dollars with a company that values their business while having an opportunity to earn rewards and benefits over time.

So what’s your company doing to improve the complete buying experience? What’s your strategy for acquiring new customers and retaining existing ones? How can you increase the profitability of your customers’ transactions? The short answer to these questions is this: Initiate a loyalty strategy.

If you follow the basic principles of the loyalty cycle, the success of your loyalty program will speak for itself. Your loyal customers will frequent you more often and increase spending, which will lead to greater profitability. And you’re never too large or too small to launch a loyalty program. Whether you have three stores or 300, a bakery or a bank, you can design a loyalty program that complements your current business strategy.

Below is a brief description of each principle within the loyalty cycle. An expanded version of each principle is found in Essential Steps 6 through 10.