Five Steps To Bridge Loyalty Gap

Peter Clark, editor of The Wise Marketer, has published an updated edition of The Loyalty Guide. Below is an excerpt that deals with bridging the "customer loyalty gap".

How do you bridge the gap, then? Marketers need to learn to look at the issue from the customer's point of view, and that usually means the following:

1. Recognise that value is not the sole criteria for judging the loyalty of a customer.

2. Develop ways of identifying the truly loyal among the medium- and low-value customers.

3. Cluster customers using multi-dimensional modelling. The model will need to be built on several facets of customer behaviour (i.e. frequency of buying, engagement or depth of involvement with the brand, value of transactions, and tenure with the brand).

4. Develop a "benefits bouquet" to build and nurture relationships across the spectrum from low to the medium value customer. It is obvious that you can't spend the same amount of money on these customers as you can on higher value customers, but loyalty is not directly proportional to the money you spend: it is dependent on the care and attention you show to each customer - and that doesn't take much money at all. Simply ask yourself how you can make the customer's product experience better, and the answer will give you a range of loyalty-building tools.

5. Understand that loyalty is not just about rewards points and birthday greetings. It is the company's "burning desire" to ensure that customers get the best value for their money. And if you can translate that sentiment into suitable behaviour among employees - so that every customer gets the greatest attention they can get every time they go shopping - then the chasm will begin to close.

This article is an extract from the 36 chapters of detailed coverage in 'The Loyalty Guide III', which is The Wise Marketer's latest 920 page global guide to customer loyalty programmes, techniques, practices and theory. The report is available now, worldwide, for £1150 (approx. US$1995 or Euro 1495). See TheLoyaltyGuide.com for the free executive summary, downloadable chapter samples, table of contents, online searching, and online ordering.