CHAPTER 8
PRACTICE 6: CREATE INTENSE LOYALTY
“You can buy a personrsquo;s hand, but you canrsquo;t buy his heart. His heart is where his enthusiasm, his loyalty is.”
—STEPHEN R. COVEY
T TOOK RETAIL GIANT COSTCO less than thirty years to become the second largest retailer in the United States and the seventh largest in the world— without advertising. How? By growing a worldwide base of intensely loyal customers and employees, many of whom “wouldnrsquo;t shop or work anywhere else.”
I
The highest level of engagement is loyalty. Loyal workers and loyal customers are worth their weight in gold. A talented worker who gives her heart and mind to your enterprise can generate ten- or a hundred- or a thousand-fold more in revenue and goodwill than she will ever cost you. A customer who gives you a lifetime of return business and word-of-mouth support is the ultimate competitive lever you can use to move the world.
The old paradigm was “customer and employee satisfaction.” Itrsquo;s great to have satisfied customers and employees, but itrsquo;s no longer enough. The new paradigm is “intense loyalty,” and shifting to that paradigm is the job you must do now.
“SATISFACTION”—THE OLD PARADIGM
Most customer satisfaction surveys donrsquo;t lead to meaningful change. They are often poorly designed, too long, and biased. The questions are frequently crafted
to get certain answers, which makes the resulting data inaccurate. Many of the questions are centered less on customer issues and more on “How did we do?”
Reliance on pro forma “satisfaction” scores is lazy twentiethcentury thinking and a formula for complacency.
Obviously, the quality of leadership is often the reason for loyalty or disloyalty among employees and customers. Reliance on pro forma “satisfaction” scores is lazy twentieth-century thinking and a formula for complacency. The real question for leaders is, “How do you build intense loyalty?”
|
THE JOB USED TO BE hellip; |
THE JOB THAT YOU MUST DO NOW hellip; |
|
Satisfy customers Create intense loyalty |
|
“INTENSE LOYALTY”: THE NEW PARADIGM
How do you get the kind of intense engagement that was so movingly demonstrated by the workforce at Western Digital? How do you get the unshakable loyalty of sixty million people who gladly fork over a membership fee every year to shop in a warehouse called Costco?
The answer, according to Harvard professor and veteran Bain consultant Fred Reichheld, is “to treat them the way you would want to be treated.” This principle, known as the Golden Rule, is laughably simple—and it works. Reichheld cites Colleen Barrett, president emeritus of wildly successful Southwest Airlines: “Practicing the Golden Rule is integral to everything we do.” Andy Taylor, executive chairman of Enterprise, the most prosperous rental- car company in the world, says, “The only way to grow is to treat customers so well they come back for more and tell their friends about us.”1
“Practicing the Golden Rule is integral to everything we do.”
—COLLEEN BARRETT, PRESIDENT EMERITUS, SOUTHWEST AIRLINES
Herersquo;s just one example of Enterprisersquo;s appreciation of the Golden Rule: A friend of ours on a business trip got stranded in a small town in the American Midwest. His plane was canceled, and it was long past closing time for the only rental-car office at the tiny airport, but he thought hersquo;d try the door. A smiling young man in a white shirt and tie opened it. He was an Enterprise employee, and quickly signed out the last rental car in town to our friend.
“Why are you even here?” our friend asked. “Itrsquo;s awfully late.”
The young man answered, “I heard the flight out of town got canceled, so I figured somebody would probably need me.” Then he pulled a cake out of his small refrigerator. “My wife made this cake today and brought it over for anybody who might want some. Would you like a piece?” Our friend had missed his dinner and actually was kind of hungry. He thankfully took the piece on a plate with a fork and a napkin, and it was delicious.
Then the young man said, “Here, take the whole cake. Yoursquo;ve got a long drive to Des Moines.”
Our friend, who had never done business with Enterprise before, is now a lifetime customer. “They take the cake!” he says. Enterprise systematically instills the Golden Rule into every one of its nearly 70,000 employees, and as a result is named the most customerfriendly car rental company year after year.
Every company has pockets of great customer service, but few make a system of it—which is ironic, since study after study demonstrates that customer loyalty is the prime driver of profitable growth. Itrsquo;s well established that as little as 5 percent growth in customer loyalty can drive as much as 85 percent growth in profits.2
Study after study demonstrates that customer loyalty is the prime driver of profitable growth.
By contrast, chronic inconsistencies in customer service are the enemy of loyalty. Some companies pay a fearsome price when their poor practices show up on YouTube—a delivery person carelessly tossing a customerrsquo;s purchases into his truck, workers stealing photos off a customerrsquo;s laptop, a fast-food employee licking the food. You canrsquo;t afford an inconsistent record when it comes to promoting loyalty. Of course, the opposite is also true—stories of extraordinary customer service can spread like wildfire.
AN INTENSE-LOYALTY “APP”
Companies need a system—an “application”—for building loyalty all along the journey of the
剩余内容已隐藏，支付完成后下载完整资料
英语原文共 7 页，剩余内容已隐藏，支付完成后下载完整资料
资料编号：[137566]，资料为PDF文档或Word文档，PDF文档可免费转换为Word
以上是毕业论文外文翻译，课题毕业论文、任务书、文献综述、开题报告、程序设计、图纸设计等资料可联系客服协助查找。
