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Customer Satisfaction Consulting .com
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Connecting Customer Satisfaction and Customer Loyalty
Customer satisfaction is a key in retaining customers. Therefore, it is vital to
view improvements in customer satisfaction as a tool in achieving higher customer
retention. What is loyalty? According to the American Heritage Dictionary of the English
Language, Fourth Edition copyright 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company, loyalty is
a feeling or attitude of devoted attachment and affection. This definition can be interpreted as both an attitude and a behavior. Therefore,
to truly understand and influence of loyalty on customers and on your business,
you must understand both attitudinal loyalty and behavioral loyalty. Companies can connect customer satisfaction to specific buyer behavioral loyalty
if the company can track customer purchase behavior over time, either through transactions
or by summaries of monthly spending. One popular method of collecting this information
is with the use of frequent shopper cards. The customer simply swipes the card
to receive discounts, or to accumulate bonus pints that can be redeemed for coupons,
or merchandise. These cards, actually track the customers purchasing habits, giving
the company one of the best ways to measure the impact of customer satisfaction
through what it is that customers actually purchase. Companies that are armed with this data can target their customers with goods and
services that meet the customers' needs. Meeting needs creates loyal customers
and increase sales. However, many retailers have been criticized for increasing
prices a week or so before a frequent shopper card is implemented, only offer customers
who use the new frequent shopper card the original price on items before the increase.
Tactics such as this do not create loyal customers, but instead create customer
disloyalty. When companies use methods such as frequent shopping cards as a means to collect
data, they can target their product categories and offer their customers what they
want, when they want it creating customer satisfaction.
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