Customer Loyalty: How to Earn It, How to Keep It

I've added reading notes on Jill Griffin's book, Customer Loyalty: How to Earn It, How to Keep It - and am delighted to finally encounter an author who recognizes that customer experience isn't a new idea invented by Web 2.0, but a very old one that predates not only the Internet, but the era of mass-marketing, which is only now being re-discovered by companies that realize mass-anything is an unfriendly experience, unappealing and increasingly unacceptable to the consumer.

Since the mid-twentieth century, the focus in manufacturing, retailing, and customer service has been on efficiency: to cut cost and increase profits by delivering to the customer not only a product that is standardized and undifferentiated, but also a relationship that is formalized, patterned, standard, and soulless. The experience of buying a product at one retailer was little different than buying it from another: mediocre and unsatisfactory.

It's difficult to tell whether the companies that proclaim "customer loyalty is dead" are bemoaning its loss or cheering their victory. After all, they are the ones who killed it: providing a level of service that delights customers was seen as an unnecessary expense, and every aspect of the buying experience that could be eliminated was pared away. Except for the logo over the door, one retailer is much the same as any other - and there's no reason to prefer one over the next.

But innovative firms have broken from the herd, discovering that providing a higher level of service might cost a little more in the short run, but over time, it attracts and retails a loyal customer base who are, by and large, immune to competitors promises of a (slight) discount. Other firms that seek to regain their competitiveness, jealous of the success of the innovators, have been seeking to imitate their tactics, without really understanding them.

In that sense, this book is an excellent read for marketers in all channels: it addresses some of the foundations of customer loyalty - and while I don't expect it provides all the answers, it provides a very good indication of the problems, and a solid theoretical basis on which to build a solution.