Are Your Customers Sticky?

Linda LaitalaBusiness, Employees, Leadership, Management, Marketing, SalesLeave a Comment

CNBC Survey reported that 30% of small business owners shut down during the pandemic, 10% of those have yet to reopen. Some businesses run in circles shouting, “The sky is falling!”, while others hunker down, adapt, modify, and update their organizations to this new world.

Successful businesses employed their people for as long as they could, they followed CDC guidelines to keep people safe and well. These businesses stayed open even when losing money. When employees had to be laid off, they kept in touch with them, showing concern for their well-being. They focused on making their companies attractive places to work.

Many establishments closed because they had inadequate cash reserves, illnesses, and other legitimate reasons. Other owners closed their doors because they neglected to think about employees and customers.

Management guru Zeynep Ton has developed a “Good Jobs” philosophy. In her vision companies focus on the source of their success: customer loyalty to a brand. It’s a competitive advantage she calls customer stickiness.

Customer stickiness is achieved when motivated, creative, and personally invested employees build loyalty, one customer at a time. According to Ton, you can employ people focused on creating customer delight by paying them a fair wage, compensating them generously in other ways, and educating them in customer care. That’s how to create Good Jobs.

In a “bad jobs” system, frontline employees are inadequately trained, often underequipped, and disrespected. The results are high turnover, poor customer service, and halfhearted attempts to adapt to customers’ desires.

Companies that have collapsed from this affliction include Borders, Toys “R” Us, Sears. J.C. Penney, J. Crew, Gold’s Gym, Neiman Marcus, Pier 1 Imports, GNC, Cirque do Soleil, Brooks Brothers, Lord & Taylor, Stein Mart. Ruby Tuesday and the list goes on. Some will come out the other side of bankruptcy stronger and changed while others will languish and die.

How many of your customers would you describe as sticky? What can you do to make your most desirable and profitable customers sticky?

The road is easier together,

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