Customer Satisfaction is over-rated

Does your company obsess over customer satisfaction surveys and metrics? Do you spend a lot of time asking a lot of annoying questions to scientifically determine if your customers are satisfied?

Well, I'm here to tell you that your bar is set way too low and that you are wasting your time.

Stealing "satisfied" customers away from you is easy and what I do for a living for my clients. You need to be thinking about customer loyalty, not satisfaction. Do you know the difference? Author and speaker, Jeffery Gitomer, does a great job of differentiating between customer satisfaction and customer loyalty in his book "How To Not Suck At Sales". He asks 1 simple question:

Would you rather that your spouse be satisfied or loyal?

Sheds a very different light on the subject when you put it that way, huh? Many marketing people say that customer satisfaction is a good start or that it leads to customer loyalty. I say B.S. Customer loyalty is the only thing that matters.

When customers are satisfied, you are meeting or exceeding their expectations.  All that means is that if they need more of your product or services, they *might* buy from you again.  You are just a price or rate to them.

When a customer is loyal, they are emotionally committed to your product, service, or company.  They will only buy from you.  They will promote you internally to their colleagues and peers.  They will become your internal evangelist that will refer you to additional business and help you grow the account.

If you'd like help turning satisfied customers into loyal customers, drop me a note at info@raptorink.com