University of Minnesota - UMN Executive Leadership Insights
Customer Satisfaction Is Worthless, Customer Loyalty Is Priceless
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Customer Satisfaction Is Worthless, Customer Loyalty Is Priceless

How to Make Customers Love You, Keep Them Coming Back and Tell Everyone They Know

Jeffrey Gitomer
Bard Press, 1998
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Editorial Rating

7

Qualities

  • For Beginners
  • Engaging

Recommendation

Sales books should be a separate genre. They are meant to be easily read, inspirational, rhetorical and instructional. The more qualified the salesperson-author, the more authoritative the advice. This one has all these qualities, plus author-salesman Jeffrey Gitomer has displayed his counsel like a visual party. Almost every page boasts a new typeface and layout. Some pages look like poems. On other pages, he makes suggestions he calls “self tests,” “scorecards” and “reality checks,” while on others he provides questionnaires. This is deliberately more of a jazzy series of lists than a narrative outlining a new approach. Still, getAbstract endorses its solid common wisdom: To engender customer loyalty, treat people as you would want to be treated.

Summary

The Price of Loyalty

Most companies mistakenly measure customer satisfaction ratings instead of customer loyalty. Satisfaction ratings may be as high as 97%, but that still means that 3% of your customers are free agents in the marketplace. They will shop anywhere. They may be satisfied, but that does not mean they are loyal. The challenge is to develop loyal customers who shop only at your store, buy only your service, advocate for your products and refer new business to you.

Companies should provide exceptional customer service routinely, but, in reality, it is so rare that people write books about it. To deliver exceptional service, you have to know your customers and understand what they want. Customers seek value, good communication, reliability, assurance, empathy and help from employees with good attitudes. When you don’t meet these needs, customers might get angry and refuse to buy your product. Companies often take customers for granted. Actually, your customer is more important than your boss. Customers pay your company when they buy your goods. When they don’t buy, your income is in jeopardy. To earn customer loyalty, deliver memorable service consistently...

About the Author

Jeffrey Gitomer gives seminars and speeches, and runs annual sales meetings and customer service workshops. He wrote the bestsellers The Sales Bible and The Little Red Book of Selling.

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