Have you ever thought about how much revenue you’re going to get in the next 6 months from your loyal customers vs. the ones you acquire?  I’m betting it’s a big number – in the neighborhood of 95%.  Now ask yourself what you’re doing to be sure the revenue you expect from loyal customers actually materializes.  Could you be doing more?

Mark did a guest gig on the Peppers & Rogers website recently that discusses customer loyalty.  The path to keeping customers coming back is a lot like the GPS system in your car or golf cart.  It’s a path that has been blazed by an explosion of available data and technologies that turn that data into actionable information.  Making the most of it is simply a matter of making a basic strategic decision: to become a customer-centric company rather than a product-centric company as so many companies are.

The first question a customer-centric  company asks is ‘what do my customers want’?  Product-centric companies focus on SKUs instead.

Once you decide to be customer-centric you’ll be looking for the kind of insights that come from analyzing customer transaction data:  segmentation, purchase probabilities, customer movement and such.  Getting to know how your customers behave is critical.  It’s knowledge that will drive your customer communications and campaigns.

We know that customers aren’t all alike.  Does treating them all alike by sending them all the same marketing messages make sense?  Instead try taking what you’ve learned and develop a differentiated contact strategy based on what customers have told you they want and need.  What they’re looking for from you is value, not marketing tricks or an adversarial relationship.

You’ll earn their loyalty over time by putting them first – ahead of the SKUs.  The payoff will be loyalty, more efficient marketing, good word of mouth for you, and ultimately a fatter bottom line.  If you don’t believe it, ask one of our customers.

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