What Does It Take to Keep Customers Loyal?

Most companies can potentially get repeat business from the same customer. If you sell a product that needs to be replaced with some frequency, your revenue stream benefits when customers come back and buy from you over and over. Even if your product has a long life, there's every reason to hope customers you have treated well may return and buy again. It all depends on whether you have earned customer loyalty.

I've had customer loyalty on my mind a lot lately, in part because a market researcher friend, Jennifer Berkley of The Insight Advantage is a a real customer loyalty advocate. (I even wrote a post on her blog on "Why Customers Defect" last fall.)

It costs a fraction in terms of marketing dollars to retain an existing customer compared to what it costs to land a new one. The relatively low retention cost is simply the cost of good customer service.

That's all easy to grasp. But what makes customers be happy, loyal customers? Turns out it may depend on gender! The American Marketing Association Journal (AMA) reports that:

"Female customers are more loyal than male customers to individuals, such as specific service providers (e.g., a hair dresser, a doctor, a salesperson). However, the difference is reversed for groups and grouplike entities, such as companies. That is, men tend to be more loyal than women to companies and organizations (e.g., a hair salon, a medical clinic, a store)."

Given those findings and depending on who your target customers are, think about tailoring your customer service and marketing efforts differently -- by gender. Specifically, the study concludes:

1)  Male consumers may be satisfied with an anonymous relationship with a store or chain, but female consumers demand more personal, one-to-one relationships.

2) If the company targets female rather than male customers, the power over the customer relationship should be more with individual employees and less with the company. For companies with a large share of male customers, strategies such as the rotation of employees or assigning a team rather than one employee to a customer may be more successful than for a company with predominantly female customers.

3)  For companies targeting men, advertising strategies stressing group themes should engender more loyalty. For companies targeting women, advertising themes focusing on personal relationships may be more suitable.

Be clear on who spends money with your business. If it is 50-50 male and female customers, be prepared to address both genders on their own terms for best customer retention.

Tip of the hat to Rohit Bhargava for pointing to the AMA Journal post.

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[Ava Venson]

So you think customer loyalty is earned? I'm sure many business owners agree with you on that, Mary. Consumers don't patronize businesses for no reason. In fact, they may have a lot! And entrepreneurs must know those reasons -- and bank on them. The angle you provided is quite interesting, actually. Business owners can start by knowing the differences between what males and females look for in a product or service.