Practicing Customer Loyalty in Professional Services
Once you've landed a client, what's it take to keep them?
"In today’s hyper-competitive environment, loyalty is critically important to most businesses and is an important key to increased profitability and long term survival," according to a new report from Martiz Inc. a consumer-marketing researcher. " Companies that do not actively measure and manage loyalty do so at their own peril."
But what sustains customer loyalty?
Translated for the professional services sector, the answers are:
>> Client care standards and procedures
>> Product and service enhancements
>> Targeted (one-to-one) communications and dialogue marketing efforts
>> Flawless internal operations
>> Regular advertising, promotion
>> Employee training programs, and
>> Incentives.
So How about incentives?
What are the top incentives? In the consumer sector they are:
Merchandise........................18%
Gift Certificates...................45%
Experiential Rewards...........9%
Travel...................................18%
Other.......................................9%
Professional services, of course, are another breed of cat. Loyalty programs begin with great service and one-to-one contact, and stretch through adding real business value and innovation, such as educational services or market news and intelligence.
So don’t be fooled by all the iPOD (as cool as the gadget is) give-aways.
BOTTOM LINE: True professionals want value, relationships and results. Strrategically structured communications is just one element for success.
