The concept of “10 out of 10 or nothing” is about understanding exactly what your customers want and then delivering all of it, not some of it, near enough is not good enough.
It’s not just an empty saying. It’s a focus, a belief, a way of living, and a way of operating your business.
One of the first steps to deliver a 10 out of 10 service is to research your customers and know what they are saying about you. It’s a crucial first step.
Do they love the experience? Are they recommending you to their friends? Are they definitely planning to return?
Many businesses do have some sort of customer research, a form to fill in, an email survey or a follow-up phone call after a purchase.
The question is, is that research statistically valid and does it follow a proven methodology, (you can trust its questioning). Does it really find out what the customers truly feels. A customer satisfaction survey is only measuring their satisfaction and does not indicate if they are planning to return and tell others about you. ‘’Who cares if they are satisfied if they are not coming back and telling other people’’.
If you don’t know what your customers are saying about you, how can you make improvements?
Most businesses don’t know:
How many customers promote them to their friends and why.
How to drive that kind of word-of-mouth referral.
How many customers will return and why.
When you understand the Why you can replicate those experiences. You also need to know the opposite, if they are not recommending you or coming back what are the most important improvements you can make to change their experience.Even if the business is growing, they don’t realise how much growth they’re losing because they are not accurately measuring the customer experience and its impact on revenue.
What gets measured gets done
If you don’t know where you started and you don’t have a way of measuring your progress you can’t measure your success.
Implementing a customer loyalty program involves knowing your benchmark – where you started and knowing how you are tracking your achievement.
Putting in place measurements so you know whether you are winning the game while you are playing it.
Think of it like playing sport and not knowing the score until the game ended. That would be ridiculous, and it’s just as ridiculous for a business. Example, ten pin bowling…. When playing ten pin bowling you are constantly aware of your score. When you bowl the ball, you want to know your score. You don’t want to wait until later to find out. You decide how to bowl your second ball from the data you got from bowling your first ball.
How do you know you’re winning the game while it’s being played?
Customer Loyalty Research gives you a benchmark and the ways you can improve. It needs to be completed two to three times per year (every 4-6 months), to measure your impact. This frequency is important as it allows you take the actions required give them time to have an impact then you measure again to see what the impact was.
Those who survey constantly often get focussed only on the numbers and not the impact of the actions taken.
The above diagram shows the need to measure then act then measure again to see the impact of the actions on your customers experience.
Implementing a customer loyalty program is not simple. Especially if you want to do it well and actually makes a difference, ensures you have a program that will drive revenue and increase the number of loyal customers.
Loyal customers are those customers who actively return to do repeat business with you and who promote you to their friends and colleagues.
Need more information? Have a look through my previous Blogs, located on The Loyalty Zone website or contact me, I look forward to hearing from you.
If you have enjoyed this article, feel free to share with someone else you know will find this helpful.
If someone has forwarded you this email, you are welcome to join The Loyalty Conversation, I appreciate your commitment to the conversation.
Warm Regards,
Craig Cherry