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Customer Loyalty – A Must For Your Company With CXN

March

17th

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Salespeople have always known that one great sale does not mean success, says CXN. Repetitive sales are necessary, and it’s easier to keep old customers than find new ones. If a company can’t keep a steady flow of returning customers, they are in trouble. Customer loyalty is mandatory for success at any level.

The term itself is pretty recent. Even though the concept has been around for a while, the precise verbiage didn’t even begin to appear in college textbooks or business books until the late 90s. Little thought was given to the idea of repeat business being such a significant portion of net worth. In small towns and rural areas, there was no need to worry about repeat business because there were no options. If you needed nails, you went to the one hardware store. If you went out to lunch, you ate at the only diner and if you needed aspirins or a prescription, you walked to the drug store. The shopkeepers knew you’d come back; they weren’t worried until the town grew and new stores started springing up all over.

Nowadays everyone has competition. The local diner you went to with your parents now has to compete with major fast food restaurants and high end coffee shops. Most corner drug stores have been pushed out of business by national chains. All the customer loyalty in the world wasn’t going to stop these changes.

Competition became difficult, and since shopkeepers and small businesses had never had to compete, many failed. The ones that stayed were still forced into hiring professionals to show them how to stay in business and how to keep the customers they once had with the new ones they managed to acquire. New customers were attracted with new loyalty programs, and old customers were tempted to stay.

According to CXN, these loyalty programs appeared everywhere. Even the corner bakery realized how important it was to keep customers coming back, especially with the big name coffee shops moving in. Ten cups of coffee would get you a free large, or even a pastry. The nail salon would give you a free manicure after five that you paid for, and the large grocery stores instituted ‘two for one’ deals for loyal patrons.

Some leading retail chains have instituted programs where customers receive $10 gift cards for every $250 spent. Another has an entire section of their website available only to ‘gold’ customers; they are offered larger discounts and even free shipping on many products including clothes, electronics and home goods. A famous coffee purveyor has only recently implemented a loyalty program, which includes previously unheard of ‘free refills’ after attaining a certain number of points each month. Even our old standby fast food restaurants to which we have all been loyal for decades now offer discounts and ‘twofers’ on a regular basis to everyone.

These rewards weren’t just handed out by retailers, according to CXN. Banks and even insurance companies did whatever they could to show long time customers how important they are. One large bank now offers customers who are able to keep a sizeable balance on hand, an entire set of some outstanding cookware. CXN advises, customers want to be rewarded, and now these customer loyalty programs are here to stay.