5 Rules That Absolutely Build Customer Loyalty

A lot of the behavioral sciences can feel intimidating. However, it doesn’t have to be. The Five Rules Podcast Series is our attempt at giving you an easy entry point into the complex and messy world of Behavioral Science.

If I had a more efficient family and less expensive friends than you have now, would you like to trade? I can guarantee they will save you time and money. 

My guess is probably not. We don’t measure the worth of our families and friends with metrics like time and money savings. We have an emotional bond with them that we cannot replace with a better model or an updated version. 

Loyal customers are the same way. They have an emotional bond with the companies they do business with and those feelings are why they come back over and over again. Not surprisingly, loyal customers are the most profitable and have a direct effect on your bottom line. 

In this episode we explore the five rules that absolutely build customer loyalty. These rules help you design an experience that creates those emotional bonds and the loyal customers that come with them. 

Key Ideas to Improve your Customer Experience

When it comes to building experiences that produce the emotional relationships that promote customer loyalty, there are no shortcuts. It requires thinking long-term and in detail about how you interact with your customers. Our five rules help organize that process into actionable steps. 

Here are some highlights of our discussion:

• 03:37  We talk about how many organizations think too much about the short-term goals and not enough about long-term goals. 
• 07:59 We talk about how loyalty requires both parties to give and take, compromise, and understand each other, so organizations should remember that it goes both ways. 
• 14:48  Ryan explains the difference between inertia and real loyalty, and why mistaking one for the other can be a real problem for organizations. 
• 20:47   Colin talks about one of his favorite topics, customer memories and their relationship to forming emotional and loyal connections with organizations.
• 23:12  We bring it back to the emotional part of an experience that many times organizations overlook in their pursuit of business. 
• 25:42  Colin explains the importance of having an Emotional Bank Account with people and to keep up with putting deposits in it. 

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Customer Experience Information & Resources

LinkedIn recognizes Colin Shaw as one of the 'World's Top 150 Business Influencers.' As a result, he has 289,000 followers of his work. Shaw is Founder and CEO of Beyond Philosophy LLC, which helps organizations unlock growth by discovering customers' hidden, unmet needs that drive value ($). The Financial Times selected Beyond Philosophy LLC as one of the best management consultancies for the last two years. Follow Colin on Linkedin and Twitter.

Click here to learn more about Professor Ryan Hamilton of Emory University. 

Why Customers Buy: As an official "Influencer" on LinkedIn, Colin writes a regular newsletter on all things Customer Experience. Click here to join the other 22,000 subscribers. 

Experience Health Check: You already have an experience, even if you weren't deliberate about it. Our Experience Health Check can help you understand what you have today. Colin or one of our team can assess your digital or physical Customer Experience, interacting with your organization as a customer to define what is good and what needs improving. Then, they will provide a list of recommendations for critical next steps for your organization. Click here to learn more. 

How can we help?

Click here to learn more about Beyond Philosophy's Suite of Services.