Give your customers something to talk about

Do your customers talk about your stores?

By Terry McKenna

Terry McKenna is principal and co-founder of Employee Performance Strategies Inc. (EPS), based in Chantilly, Va. You can contact him at (888) 788-9090 or perform@eps-i.com

I recently had a birthday, and, no, I’m not going to tell you how old I am. Funny isn’t it? When we’re kids we run around telling anyone willing to listen that it’s our birthday and how old we are. Every year I have the same birthday expectation: will my two kids remember. I say kids even though they’re 23 and 21. I’ve told them that I don’t want or need any presents, a card would be nice, but at the very least I do expect a phone call. That’s not asking much is it? Well at 10:30PM, with 90-minutes remaining in my birthday, the big phone call came in. It was my daughter who explained that she would have called me earlier in the day but she thought my birthday was the following day! She then turned the phone over to her brother who proceeded to tell me that he too would have phoned me earlier in the day but that he was waiting to make the call jointly with his sister. I’d like to think that they are cost-conscious kids, but my checkbook knows all to well that they aren’t. Such is life right?

Customer Intimacy:
Do you know who did remember my birthday with a birthday card? Southwest Airlines. Now here’s the amazing thing, or what some of you might refer to as the “WOW Factor.” Southwest Airlines has remembered my birthday with a birthday card for seven straight years. Let me repeat that – seven straight years. Maybe my kids can get a job with SWA! The fact that SWA has not forgotten my birthday for the last seven years completely blows me away. Yes, I enjoy the low fares, the pleasant and funny flight attendants, the on-time takeoffs (for the most part), and the fact that my luggage arrives with me. But what I love about SWA is that little $1 (with postage) birthday card that they send me.

So what does all this have to do with the title of this month’s column? What are you doing within your organization that will cause your customers to think and talk about your company in a positive way? With today’s high gas prices, the conversation among customers is not exactly positive. The customer birthday card mailed out by SWA is both strategic and tactical. The intent of those little cards is to create an emotional bond with their customers. The type of bond that will help SWA achieve the following business results:

1. Reduce customer defection
2. Lower customer acquisition costs
3. Increase customer loyalty
4. Create customer goodwill ambassadors
   
5. Create customer forgiveness equity

No. 5 means that when a company makes a mistake, which they will from time to time, customers who feel a strong emotional connection to that company are more willing to forgive them for their mistake than they are companies where they have not developed a strong emotional connection.

Questions To Ponder:
A lot of companies employ slogans that claim the customer is the center of their universe. However, words and actions are completely different. Simply saying you’re something doesn’t make it so.

1. Are you doing anything to cause your customers to toot your horn like I’m tooting SWA’s?
2. Is your company focused squarely on the customer or on your organization’s bureaucracy?
3. Do you know what your customer defection rate is?
4. Do you know what your customer acquisition costs are?
5. Is your organization committed to talking or taking action?

SWA clearly knows the answer to 3 and 4, which is why they have implemented the customer retention birthday card strategy. SWA’s only risk is that they have placed my expectation bar very high. Now that they have started, I expected my birthday card every year. Considering the fact that they haven’t forgotten my birthday for the past seven years I have more faith in them than I do my own kids. After all, it’s RESULTS that speak the loudest!

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