I come from a lineage of “fighters.” Not the kind that argue, the kind that know what it takes to hold true to a dream and fight for an outcome against great odds.

My maternal grandmother, Ada Faircloth Marsh, was a fighter. As a poor farm girl in eastern North Carolina she finished high school a decade before the Great Depression. Ada was the oldest of three. Her parents were tenant farmers who depended on their children to help in the fields. With school behind her, Ada was destined to pick cotton and harvest tobacco full time.

My grandmother had other ideas. She dreamed of attending college and becoming a teacher….something that farm girls simply did not do. Afterall, ‘Why would any poor family invest money in a daughter?’ went the conventional wisdom of the day. That money was better spent on seed, farming tools and curing barns. Yet, my grandmother held to her dream.

Day after day, out in the fields, Ada begged her “Papa” to send her to a nearby teachers college. And with every no, she’d regroup and ask again, and again, and again. For nearly a year, she pleaded, she made her case, she fought for her future. And finally, she got her yes.

But much hard work lay ahead. Ada went to Pineland Teachers College where she cleaned tables in the dining hall and took on every other odd job she could find to offset tuition. When her sister, Lila, was ready, Ada made way for her, as well.

Back home, the men in the community ridiculed Papa for sending his daughters to college. But, he had the last laugh: Papa was able to get farm loans from the local bank using his daughters’ teacher salaries as collateral.

My grandmother’s 3rd Grade Class, 1959.

Ada and Lila lived fine lives… between the two, they logged more than 70 years of teaching in the North Carolina public school system. And masterful teachers they were!

Loyalty Lesson: In today’s siloed, turf-focused firms, it takes “fighters” to unify the company around the processes and systems that deliver dependable customer experiences. It doesn’t happen overnight. It’s typically a long, arduous, uphill path for leaders with the courage to take on the challenge. As my friend and fellow author Jeanne Bliss preaches,“You gotta believe.” And that means relentlessly committing to and fighting for the cause.

The fight is worth it because the emotional payoff is so huge: You can look back with pride and satisfaction in years to come with the knowledge that you gave your all. But, sadly, many feel fear and run from the fight, unable to “man-up” for the hard work required. And by doing so, they remove themselves from any chance of receiving the unimaginable lessons this challenging work will bring.

Don’t retreat. Be a fighter. Commit to the loyalty work.

You’ll grand kids will love your stories!

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 10th, 2011 at 11:36 am | Comments Off

In the down economy of these past years, you probably have customers who have left you. Many had no choice. It was about the economy — not about you.
They are ready to return IF you just ask them.

But before reaching out, get prepared. And that starts by defining the term “win back.” The Direct Marketing Association tells us, “A win back is a dormant customer who begins to purchase again due to a targeted sales and marketing effort.”

Here’s seven factors to consider:

1. Avoid This Trap. Many firms lack a win-back component and treat lapsed customers as new prospects. That’s a huge mistake! The very fact you have a history with this lost customer is a huge advantage to wooing them back. Use it!

2. Turn “Lost” Into “Love” . It’s easy to forget that lost customers are, first and foremost, people with feelings. Many may feel shy about the fact they haven’t sent you an order in a long while or been in to shop. Leveraging these very circumstances can positively differentiate your firm in the minds of lost customers. It’s your opportunity to show you really care…to reach out and let customers know they’ve been missed…..to demonstrate they matter to you.
3. Do Your Homework. Not all lost customers are created equal. Some lapsed accounts are worthy of higher win-back investment than others. Segmenting your lost accounts by such factors as “long-term revenue potential” and “shortest time to revenue” is critical. Before you reach out to lost customers and invite them to return, it’s important that you have a clear understanding on which lost accounts are your best win-back prospects and the payback potential for winning them back.
4.Pay Attention to Last Price Paid. Studies show that at the point of reactivation, customers respond negatively to price if that price is higher than the last price paid before lapse. But relax. After the relationship has been reestablished price increases can occur without affecting customer defection.
5. Use Social Media as a Win-back Tool. Research shows the role of social media has a direct effect on switching intentions. A service provider with strong social media presence will likely have an advantage over the provider who does not. Bottom line, go where your customers are online to strengthen your win back efforts.

6. Test. Test. Test. What win-back offers best entice which lost customers? Is a lapsed customer that received special favors and gifts in the past, best motivated by a price advantage coupled with special treatment? Testing various offers is key. It enables you to understand which factors influence which customers to return.

7. Reinforce the Decision After the Sale. Research shows that the lost customer’s decision to reinitiate a relationship after a long lapse results in a greater amount of dissonance relative to the decision to reinitiate a relationship after a shorter lapse. The way a lost customer who comes back handles this dissonance is to engage in post-decision processing that reinforces the new decision that has been made. Do this: Provide your newly reacquired customer with ample messaging that communicates why the decision to return was a sound one.

The down economy has heightened customer defection in most firms. Don’t squander the opportunity to recapture lost customers you simply can’t afford to lose. Winning back lost customers is your ticket to increased sales, profits and heighted emotional attachment with your reinstated customers.

The time is now. Don’t delay. Win them back before your competitors grab them!

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 5th, 2011 at 6:38 pm | Comments Off

Would you take a few minutes and look at my new, short (2 minutes!) “how to”  You Tube videos.  They focus on how to build customer loyalty.  What do you like?  Not like? I’d love your input as I work to make these better and better. www.youtube.com/loyaltymaker

I made these videos with a cool tool called Screenr  (www.screenr.com).  I so appreciate your help!

JILL

This entry was posted on Sunday, September 19th, 2010 at 7:16 pm | Comments Off

Loyalty expert Jill Griffin was featured in Deliver Magazine. The US Postal Office publishes this great publication which you can subscribe to online. Jill’s latest book Taming the Search and Switch Customer addresses how Google and online search are changing the game of customer loyalty.

This article was written by Pamela Oldham and is crossposted at oddpodz.com

Loyalty marketing has significantly evolved in the last two decades — and there are pitfalls to not keeping up. Marketing guru Jill Griffin, author of the best-selling Customer Loyalty: How to Earn It, How to Keep It, explains how changing your approach to loyalty can help you win more business from the customers you already have.

1. Evolve with Your Customers
Customer needs are changing, constantly evolving, be it business-to-business or business-to-consumer. “Customers can help you stay on top of the ‘value curve’ and help you find ways to deliver exceptional value,” Griffin says. “But you can’t depend on them to spell it out in a focus group. You have to dig for that info.” Find the behaviors of your best customers, understand why customers are walking away from you when they do and put together the pieces of the value puzzle.

2. Keep Up with Loyalty Marketing Trends
Right now, it’s less about redeeming for merchandise and more about access and enhancing experiences — for example, a credit card company giving customers the ability to get great tickets for a major rock concert before they go on sale to the general public. “Bigger retailers are recognizing that customization of experiences is a big deal,” Griffin says. “And the payoff is that customer spending increases significantly over the months following an event.”

3. Identify and Monitor Your Best Customers
Don’t just amass customer data, truly wade through it and make it strategic.Look at spending. But don’t stop there. Also look at future lifetime value and share of wallet. Marry geographic and income data with that to see if that person has a larger wallet and a larger potential to spend long term. “You want to invest in that potential,” Griffin says. “It’s not just who’s spending the most money with you right now.”

This entry was posted on Monday, July 19th, 2010 at 1:58 pm | Comments Off

Two of my favorite colleagues have recently released must-read new books!

Selling guru Jill Konrath’s new book, Snap Selling, address head-on solutions for capturing the attention of today’s “crazy-busy” (Jill’s words) prospects. Download a samplechapters and other free resources at Jill’s spunky site:  www.snapselling.com.

Customer Experience Expert Lior Arussy has a new book entitled, Customer Experience Strategy. The chapter “Different Experiences for Different Customers,” alone, is worth the price of the book!

Lior’s describes a segment of “inherently unhappy customers” which represented only 5% of the customer base but occupied 45% of the service department’s time. Can you get that granular in your customer segmentation? Lior’s book is a great start.  Learn more at www.CEStrategyTheBook.com

Want to stay ahead of the competition?  Read.  It’s your opportunity to get into the best minds in the business.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 6th, 2010 at 8:23 am | Comments Off

I dropped my Blackberry on a hard surface, and when I did, it fell into several pieces. I attempted to put the Blackberry back together but when I did, it would not boot.

So, I visited my closest AT&T store for help. I was greeted by a young staffer behind the check-out desk who confidentlly took the Blackberry apart, reinserted a few of its parts and informed me it would take a moment to see if it booted.  She cautioned me that if it didn’t, I would need to take my Blackberry to a T-Mobile store. Now here’s where it gets interesting…..

I ask her where the closest T-Mobile store was located. She says, “I don’t know.” An older staff (probably her supervisor) is standing at the adjacent computer terminal and overhears our exchange.

He simply says, “Let’s search,” and proceeds to do so. Now, she gets it! (Oh, I shouldn’t just say “I don’t know.” I should help the customer!) She tells him she’ll do the search and soon she finds the info I need.

Key learning point: This colleague/supervisor modeled the appropriate behavior in a supportive way. Many of us would have simply “told” her what to do. His approach was far more collegial and it got her going. I was impressed!

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 22nd, 2010 at 11:35 am | Comments Off

Marketing ace and friend, Bob Gutermuth (founder of Dialog Marketing) shared this recent experience with a Houston pizzeria. Reports Bob, "We left our feedback via a comment card that the waitress asked us to fill out. The very next day I received the following email from the restaurant:"

Loyalty Tip: Don’t just ask for feedback. Put it to work! And circle back with customers to let them know how their feedback is being used to improve the customer experience.

Want to one-up your competition and win a customer for life? This kind of “closed loop” communication can help!
–

About the Author, Jill Griffin, The Loyalty Maker®

Jill Griffin’s new book, Taming the Search-and-Switch Customer: Building Customer Loyalty in a Compulsion-to-Compare World, is a Miami Herald “Top Business Books” pick for 2009. Buy it on Amazon or by calling 1-800-956-7739. Sign up for Jill’s Loyalty Tips at www.loyaltysolutions.com.

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 14th, 2010 at 6:57 am | Comments Off

Santa came after Christmas this year!

The Miami Herald just named, “Taming the Search-and-Switch Customer” to its list of 11 “Best Business Books” for 2009! Given the 1,000′s of fine business books published every year, I’m thrilled.  Check it out here:

http://www.miamiherald.com/103/story/1399600.html

P.S.  Santa, please know that I’ll try to be a good girl again in 2010.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 29th, 2009 at 11:06 am | Comments Off

The garage doors at my house need adjusting. They sound as if they are going to collapse whenever my husband Mack or I hit the remote opener. This week, Mack “delegated” to me the task of calling the installer to schedule a service call. I went out to the garage expecting to find the contact information on the wall mounted control box. No dice. No easy-to- find information anywhere!

Loyalty Lesson: Don’t overlook the low tech ways to build customer loyalty. In the case of my garage doors, how simple, easy and cost-efficient it would have been for the installer to have posted a simple “For service” tag on the control box. With no such information, I’m on my own in searching for a vendor. What a shame for the original installer! This could have been cash in their pocket.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 4th, 2009 at 9:49 am | Comments Off

There are hunters and there are gatherers. With the advent of online commerce, hunters are now ascendant. And why not? Thanks to Google, anyone who can key in a name, even one spelled incorrectly, can suddenly gather information about a product, service or provider in detail that would have been unthinkable just a few years earlier.

Turning browsers into buyers;
Prospective consumers are armed with information and dazzled by choices, but their new empowerment provides an opportunity for businesses to build customer loyalty.

Taming The Search-And-Switch Customer: Earning Customer Loyalty in a Compulsion-to-Compare World. Jill Griffin. Jossey Bass. 288 pages.

BYLINE: RICHARD PACHTER, rap@richardpachter.com

There are hunters and there are gatherers. With the advent of online commerce, hunters are now ascendant. And why not? Thanks to Google, anyone who can key in a name, even one spelled incorrectly, can suddenly gather information about a product, service or provider in detail that would have been unthinkable just a few years earlier.

For those of us who tend to obsessively research prices and features before making a purchase, it’s heaven, but the extra edge afforded by discovering testimonials (or cautions) from users is the real killer app. Some online retailers, most notably Amazon.com, recognize the value of this and encourage buyers to post reviews and ratings of products.

The same situation exists in the nonconsumer sector. In fact, the b-to-b segment is usually tougher in its ratings, since they generally employ more exacting requirements, and technical and legal standards may be involved as well.

It’s great if you’re a buyer, but if you’re a provider, what the heck can you do to, at the very least, participate in the process? And can you control it?

Jill Griffin may not have all the answers, but I was blown away by her deep understanding of this complicated subject and her intelligent and actionable assessment of the necessary strategies. Having a firm grasp of the obvious is all too rare.

Rather than counsel obfuscation and deception, she recommends going at it full-bore. Of course, the internals have to be worked out first, though some of the tasks can be done on the fly. The first rule of promotion still applies: make sure the product (or service) is tight; if it isn’t, then the criticism may be deserved. The whole point of Griffin’s strategy involves doing the right thing and telling the truth. If the message emanating from you and your organization is bogus, you’re sunk. If you start with honest communication and customer satisfaction as the primary goals, it’s easier to formulate company policies and practices, even if they have to be made up as you go along.

Griffin suggests ways to genuinely connect with customers and prospects with an intelligent and proactive deployment of blogs, social networks and other resources to provide support and rapid responses to criticism, problems and concerns — legitimate or otherwise. She also offers a guide — several, actually — to assess key aspects of the initiative. Customer loyalty is the ultimate goal, after all, and it’s an ongoing process.

These elements usually require a fair degree of attention and consistency. But this type of behavior is now mandatory for businesses seeking to thrive in the context of the new reality.

Griffin covers a lot of ground in this book, but her organization of the material is excellent. It’s not enough to have great ideas and to write well. If it isn’t presented in an entertaining and compelling manner, making a lasting impression will be difficult. But if any business or other organization that sells or serves is serious and sincere about engaging customers, prospects and other stakeholders, they’ll benefit from the principles, strategies and tactics of Jill Griffin.

This entry was posted on Sunday, November 1st, 2009 at 9:01 am | Comments Off