Customer Facts to Consider for Improved Loyalty

I am close to the edge of doing what offends me. I am tired of reading 5 ways to increase loyalty or 7 steps to improve customer satisfaction or 6 ways to avoid losing customers, etc. I am about to walk on the edge by noting some information that may help you improve your customer loyalty. I have taken these facts from a blog by Loyalty 360 titled "11 Key Customer Loyalty Trends for 2011". I will leave the blog alone except that within the blog there were some statistics that might provide some guidance for the new year.

Here are some statistics that, in my opinion, might have relevance to understanding customers:
1. Behavioral economists note that economic decision making is 70% emotional and 30%rational.
2. A 20009 Gallup survey found that those companies that are in the upper half of both customer and employee engagement get a 240% boost in bottom line results compared with those who are in the upper half of customer engagement or in the upper half of employee engagement who only get a 70% boost.
3. Customer engagement is the holy grail for loyalty initiatives because engagement yields loyalty, advocacy, trust and passion which are the components that directly impact the bottom line.
4. The 18 to 35 year-olds' are particularly responsive to social and green issues. 85% say they would switch brands because of such marketing and 73% said they would try a new brand.
5. The National Restaurant Association found that 84% of those members who responded plan to invest more in their loyalty initiatives in the future because of the proven ability to drive business growth.
6. A surprise finding is that traditional incentive marketing does not drive consumer participation as much as achieved by gaming. The statistics are that 200 million people play games on Facebook every month and 24 games have more than 10 million users per month. The point is that a good game can impact consumer participation and may help build a lasting relationship and/or brand loyalty.

While there is no BIG message in this blog, it does provide some insight about customers. The bottom line here is that customers continue to change and are becoming more connected using social media. Companies must be prepared to adjust their strategies to meet the changing face of the customer.