Loyalty has long been associated to Points Systems or Rewards Programs. ie., incentivizing someone to make repeat purchase of your products & services. Incentives could take many forms – discounts, coupons and so on.
Loyalty do exist in all kinds of relationships, not just in business relationships. For instance, a couple remain loyal to each other, not because of any incentives (albeit some do) but for the love and positive experience in staying together. We call this “Engagement“. So, why does a business relationship should differ from this universal principle ?
We already looked at what Customer Loyalty meant to a business in an earlier blog post. You may find it useful to refer to that blog post as well.
At Loyaltics, we have set out to redefine Loyalty. Loyalty is no more just rewards program, but about positive and passionate engagement between a business and its various relationships, that work even without rewards. And, thus came our motto “Rethink Loyalty. Think Engagement.”
Why is engagement based business relationship very important ?
Because, it generates good profits and creates sustainable business. Good profits are generated if you don’t use hard-sell tactics, but focus on exceeding customer’s expectations and offering a positive experience. And, loyal customers bring additional referrals via word of mouth marketing.
Behavioral Economists tells us that decision-making is 70% emotional and 30% rational. Incentive based loyalty programs that tend to be rational do not work well. It is the emotional side of the decision making that creates passionate and engaged customers. Your customers will jump ships if your competitor offers much better rewards program.
What is the difference between Customer Satisfaction and Customer Loyalty ?
If you are able to meet your customer’s expectations, then you get a satisfied customer; if you are able to exceed your customer’s expectations, then you get a loyal customer who in turn will get you lot more customers.
Lot of companies relate ‘loyalty’ to ‘customer loyalty‘ and to some extend to ‘employee loyalty‘ and completely forget about 2 other very important categories – your suppliers and partners. A holistic assessment of all relationships is important for success of a business.
Here are 2 examples on Loyalty and passionate engagement.
1. Apple: We all know Apple delivers great gadgets. They have a huge fan following. They don’t incentivize their customers to make repeat purchases. They’ve grown exponentially simply by positive word of mouth by their customers, who wanted to share their positive experience with others, who are their loyal fans and who in turn bring in hordes of their friends to Apple stores.
2. Harley Davidson: A motor cycle company that created a culture on wheels. It has huge fan following, some even tattoo the company name on their skin.
While some may claim business as a series of transactions, many of you would agree that it is all about trust in a relationship. A business owner need to trust his employees, his business partners, his suppliers and his customers, and the vice versa. It is this trust which drives loyalty leading to a long term business relationship that produces mutually beneficial business results.
So, sign-up NOW for our innovative Loyalty Measurement and Engagement platform, and be notified soon. You can drive significant business results simply by measuring and improving the loyalty of your Employees, Customers, Suppliers and Partners leading to an ever lasting relationships which will only get better with time just like an old champagne.
Rethink Loyalty. Think Engagement.
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