Damaging Your Customer's Loyalty

For nearly two decades, my family and I have been repeat guests at a beautiful inn on the Chesapeake Bay. We were very loyal fans, until our recent stay during the holidays.

I can no longer recommend this inn to others, which is something I've been doing enthusiastically since 1996... and we are not sure we will return.

How could the customer experience have been so bad?

On a personal note: based on our previous 18+ visits, my family has many great memories, (our kids describe it as their "second home") so I will not identify the inn by name. But I do want to provide marketers of all industries with this cautionary tale.

Our difficulties began with the room cleaning staff's decision to take a box full of our holiday gifts -- which did not look remotely like garbage, and was left at least twenty feet away from the nearest garbage can -- and throw it out!

For an example of a company which managed the customer experience beautifully, read this story:
Build Positive Emotional Equity with Customer Care

A Culture Problem

The initial error of trashing our family gifts was serious, but on its own, it was evidence only of a serious training problem with the housekeeping staff. But the failure to respond with proactive care and concern for a valued repeat customer who received less than their very best is evidence of something far more serious, and of concern to every marketer: a culture problem.

We saw an early glimpse of the very different culture during the first few moments at the property. Contrary to our 18+ previous visits, our repeat guest history was never acknowledged when we checked in.

As we came to learn, the cultural changes permeated our guest experience. I am sharing this story because these types of cultural issues apply to all marketers, not just those in the hospitality industry.

Damaging Our Loyalty

The problems we experienced were many, but included:

• It took numerous calls and visits to the front desk by my wife and daughter, to create a sense of urgency about looking for our valuable missing gifts. Finally, the manager was good enough to get into the garbage dumpster and begin to search.

We don't know if we will return... because the culture of the place we loved has dramatically changed.

Marketing Takeaways: Four Critical Points:

For any industry, identify the points of weakness that might allow your team to:

1. Develop an attitude that "the customer is probably wrong".

Ernan Roman is President of the marketing consultancy, Ernan Roman Direct Marketing.
Recognized as the industry pioneer who created three transformational methodologies: Integrated Direct Marketing, Opt-In Marketing, and Voice of Customer Relationship Research.

Ernan was recently inducted into the Marketing Hall of Fame.

Clients include Microsoft, NBC Universal, Disney, Hewlett-Packard and IBM.

Ernan was named to "B to B's Who's Who" as one of the "100 most influential people" in Business Marketing by Crain's B to B Magazine.

His fourth and latest book on marketing best practices is titled: Voice of the Customer Marketing: A Proven 5-Step Process to Create Customers Who Care, Spend, and Stay.

Ernan is also the co-author of "Opt-In Marketing: Increase Sales Exponentially with Consensual Marketing" and author of "Integrated Direct Marketing: The Cutting Edge Strategy for Synchronizing Advertising, Direct Mail, Telemarketing and Field Sales."

www.erdm.com
ernan@erdm.com