Customer satisfaction
There are two things about loyalty which are important to notice. A satisfied customer is not automatically a loyal customer. It’s only the super satisfied customers who become loyal customers. That is why ‘satisfied’ is not enough in a world of abundance. Add to that the tough reality that what we considered fantastic last year is what we expect this year. The expectations of the customer change all the time. If we want to maintain the loyalty we have to get better and better.
According to Frederick Reichheld the degree of the loyalty of the customer changes surprisingly little from very unsatisfied to satisfied. First when we move from satisfied to excited, the degree of loyalty of the customer increases. significantly. From this we can also deduce that there’s a much bigger effect in making satisfied customers to excited customers than turning very unsatisfied customer into fairly satisfied customers.
The WOW experience – the emotional component
Typically it’s an emotional experience that makes the difference for the customer and gives them the WOW experince. The staff did something extra. They came up with a great solution for our child or we got special attention etc. The key to create value – more than just making the customer satisfied – is the ability to connect emotionally with the customer and create wow experiences. Therefore, it’s stating the obvious that an employee who does not like his or her job, finds it harder to connect emotionally with the customer than the employee that checks in every day with a smile.
So how do we move from satisfied customers to excited and thereby loyal customers? We create value for the customer. Value often has that unique emotional component that makes the experience particularly memorable for the customer.