Customer Loyalty is not equal with prizes or gifts

The clock is ticking as I prepare for a product launch, thousands task pop up in my head, and one of those task is customer loyalty mechanism for the product-to be.

I look to my own personal experience to find the best loyalty mechanism, and I didn’t find something that is Ultra Amazing, what I found is something very basic yet we often forget. Allow me to explain it with a story

I recently was given an upgrade on my Credit Card, before I was just a common customer in the eyes of my bank, until that one fine day I received a package, a thick envelope, when I open that package I realized that my Credit Card has been upgraded, and I notice the phone number to activate my new card is different from the number I used to call, so I call that new number to activate my card, and I was shocked to find that, there’s no IVR, no machine answer me, a real life person answered the call, and how the customer service handled my request was amazingly fast and humane. 

Another experience comes from the banking sector, I have several thousand dollar of idle money that I want to deposit in Bank “X”, bank “X” have a branch nearby my house but instead of making the deposit at that Bank, I make the deposit  on the same Bank “X” but on a different branch, a branch that is 1,5 hours away from my house, why I make such silly decision !, it’s only because,  The bank customer service and teller, calls me by name, from the time I walk in to their doors, if they’re not busy, they’ll stand up and greet me “Good Day Pak Sander, anything we can do for you ? “ I’m not a Priority Banking customer and they greet me like I’m somebody important, that simple service touches me, I felt like a human being not just some random customer, that simple greeting won my heart and my money.

I learn 3 simple points for my product loyalty scheme

1.       If you use prizes for your loyalty scheme, you’ll catch bounty hunters that moves between products – you’ll catch bunny-hoping customer not loyal customer.

2.       Make the customer buying experience pleasant !, it’s doesn’t need to be luxurious.  e.g :  a simple digital queuing number that you can take from your home before going to the doctor will make doctor queuing much more pleasant

3.       Small stuff matters wins customer heart !, a smile, call me by my name, stand up when I approach you, give me  a glass of water, show customer that you really want to connect !

Show your customer that you "put a lot of effort" in maintaining your relationship with your customer, "buying" stuff for your customer is not "putting an effort" to maintain your customer relationship, it's bribing ! ,Bribes will work in the short run, but in the long run you'll find them moving to the next guy that offers more cooler prizes 

So what kind of loyalty scheme that I’ll be implementing to the product, the answer is absolutely “not prizes” but something that’s more personalize to each customer, can’t say what it is at the moment, but I do can tell you, it’s something that we “put an effort” not what we “buy” and I’m sure our customer can see that it comes from our heart.

 

Working fast and hard could be your downfall

We are accustom with working hard and working fast, some say we need to work smart, well I’m not going to the work smart topic, way too many articles talks about that smart working stuff.

We seldom thinks we need to work as fast as we can to be ahead of our competition and we also thinks we need to work harder take long working hour to become more efficient or to produce more, all in the name of “Staying ahead of the competitor”

Nothing is wrong with “Staying ahead of the competitor” what wrong is we almost never put the “burnout” factor into account.

What customer want is a product or service quality that comes from the heart, not from mindless robots !, and people who do their work from the heart is people who has positive emotion, while burnout people has negative or 0 emotion a.k.a mindless robots !

So how do you “stay ahead of the competition” without “burning out”? These are points that I think is applicable

1.       Know your customer and you shall find your niche!

There are no such thing as one singular market, even basic things such as rice or corns have niche markets, if you are doing exactly the same thing as what other companies are doing, then I should say you don’t know your market, if you know your market you’ll be able to pick a point of view that’s unique to your own business that no other business could imitate. That unique point of view will differentiate your self from the others and that means you are already ahead of your competition

2.       Target one (just one) unique proposition and Position yourself out loud!

You must be able to stick to just one position to the market, because the market simply cant except a product that has too many benefit, many products has tried the all mighty product approach and fails, it’s just how the mind works, and after you’ve decided one position in the market, you Market that market OUTLOUD ! Make yourself heard so you’ll create the “first in the market” protection to your product.

3.       Strategize for the long run, keep adjusting your tactics

You have to set a long term strategy what do you want to achieve in the next 5 years, and then create 1 year / 6 month goals and than set monthly objective. You adjust the objective and goals, this is how you make your strategy adapt to the market, what most fail companies do is they adjust the strategy then the goals and objective, by changing your strategy you confuse the whole organization, what you should do is keep the strategy statement and adjust the goals and objective not the other way around.

4.       Be true to yourself, be unique and grow with your uniqueness

Business is just like humans, we all in general have the same body parts, 1 head, 2 arms, 2 legs, 1 nose, 2 eyes, etc what differ from one human to another is the experience that we had when we make contact with a human being, the same thing applies to business, a business may sell the same product, do the same thing, have the same price, but the experience when interacting from one business with another is the key. Be True to yourself, be a business that delivers unique experience to your customer and grow with that uniqueness. Be a business that’s true to you of what you really care.

5.       80% Productive 20% contemplate

You know it as I do, we don’t have our “AHA” moment when we are hectic, we all got our great ideas when we are most relax, we get our ideas when we are driving home from work, or taking a shower, spending time with friends, or when we are reading a book. Try to set a time for that “AHA” moment, my rule of thumb is 80% hectic time and set aside 20% as a contemplate time, your contemplate time is a time when you can think deeply and let your imagination roam free, use articles, book, or pictures as a catalyst for your ideas, just roam free with you mind, and when you find a “creative seed” take that “creative seed” write it down in a piece of paper and think a way to execute it. Your contemplation time is your safety valve from getting “burnout” from you hectic day.

6.       Execute

Talking about strategy all day long don’t get the company moving, execution is key !, a good execution is not like flying a plane and turning on the auto pilot, no execution is on autopilot. You have to put your execution in sight daily, because market changes every day, if you are late to respond while the market is changing is like driving straight in a curve road, keep your eye on the road or you’ll crashed.

Staying ahead of the competition is not about running fast and hard ahead of your competitor, is about taking a unique route that no one else is taking, in short! Be unique, you may do the same thing and sell the same thing, but the experience is different.

Being unique doesn’t come from working hard and fast, it comes from a contemplation and self awareness, it’s about being true to yourself (business) of what you (business) really care about.