Customer loyalty: When systems don’t match and the difference of a single person
March 7, 2013 § Leave a Comment
Customer loyalty. A key component of many corporate marketing strategies and an important area of focus for most. It’s a key ingredient to a company’s long-term sustainability and a puzzle most attack through partnering up with customer loyalty companies to create programs – from large to small, simple to complex – to encourage customers to keep coming back. Yet, despite all of the planning, strategy, and systems that get put in place to enhance customer loyalty, it often all still comes down to the details and individual experiences. As a result, it really pays to invest in the basics:
- Make sure the loyalty program aligns with the product or service itself – activating loyalty rewards should be seamless and deliver the experience promised, otherwise, you could potentially do more harm than good
- Invest in the people at the front lines dealing directly with customers – at the end of the day, they are your biggest asset or liability when it comes to ensuring customer loyalty. A single person can make all the difference in a positive or negative way.
To highlight both points, I’ll draw upon an experience I had a little while ago with an airline that has engaged another company to run their loyalty program. « Read the rest of this entry »
Skype’s apology
December 31, 2010 § Leave a Comment
Nobody’s perfect, and neither is any technology. Continual growth and development is going to come with its hiccups, the important thing is how you manage the hiccups and recover from them afterwards.
Last week, Skype services went down for an extended period of time. During that period, Skype rushed to identify the reason for the service disruption and provided updates on their Twitterfeed every few hours. Although it came back online within the first day, the recovery was short-lived as service went back down the very next day. It took hours more to stablize the system again and to bring normal services back up for all users.
The culprit: a number of the support servers for offline instant messaging had become overloaded and one of the Windows versions of Skype became paralyzed. « Read the rest of this entry »
The paradox of the sales approach
June 6, 2010 § Leave a Comment
GoodLife's "services" mandate
My boyfriend and I recently both had independent experiences with a popular fitness chain in Toronto that left us bewildered and asking ourselves – do they really want our business? Doesn’t really seem like it.
The problem is that the gym is so focused on their formula for hard sales, they actually make it incredibly difficult for someone to sign up. All of the accommodation and effort required is left squarely on the shoulders of the client – which is unfortunate, because as with all things, the harder you make something, the less likely it is for someone to follow through. In the sales and service industry, this becomes another critical point to consider. « Read the rest of this entry »
Great customer service makes up for an otherwise irreparable experience
May 10, 2010 § 1 Comment
Image credit: usagolfandtravel.com
This evening, I experienced a miraculous customer service turn-around. After an exorbitant eight hours holding on the airline customer service line, the fantastic attitude and helpfulness of the customer service rep actually not only erased that negative experience, but further enhanced the image of Iceland Air in my mind.
