Loyalty is what we call it when someone refuses a momentarily better option.
If your offering is always better, you don’t have loyal customers, you have smart ones. Don’t brag about how loyal your customers are when you’re the cheapest or you have clearly dominated some key element of what the market demands. That’s not loyalty. That’s something else.
Loyal customers understand that there’s almost always something better out there, but they’re not so interested in looking. Seth Godin’s Blog — Loyalty
Over the last two weeks, I’ve talked to nine customers of a client of mine, Emerald Sod Farms, in the Metro-Denver area of Colorado. I was calling to ask for customer recommendations to be posted to my local business reviews website. Every one of those customers called mentioned the superior quality of the sod that Emerald Sod Farms provides, and they all mentioned the great customer service. Not one person mentioned “price” as the reason for recommending Emerald Sod Farms, although Emerald Sod Farms offers sod prices which are very competitive with other turfgrass farms in the Front Range Region of Colorado. Many told me that they had worked with Emerald Sod Farms for 10 to 20 years, and they said that if a quick delivery was needed or if a problem occurred, Emerald Sod Farms would solve it fast. They trusted Emerald Sod Farms to work honestly with them to solve any problem that might arise.
In reading Seth Godin’s blog post about loyalty, it struck me that every one of these customers was loyal in the way Seth had described it. The customers would know that there could be a cheaper source of turfgrass sod out there, but they counted on the product quality and superior customer service provided by Emerald Sod Farms to finish their projects and satisfy their customers. They weren’t interested in chasing the cheapest source of sod in Denver because Emerald Sod Farms had earned their loyalty. Isn’t that what your business should be doing too?
Contact Rust Reviews to help you measure and improve your customer loyalty!
