What Keeps Customers Coming Back?

The research mentioned in yesterday's blog also provided some insight on what makes customers loyal to a particular store. Rene' Wright, head of computing at Best Buy UK is quoted as saying "if someone has walked out of a store having had a positive shopping experience, they are much more likely to return, consider, recommend and purchase from you in the future."

The research by Infinite Field Marketing provides support to that notion with the following statistics from their survey of 250 shoppers.
1. Approximately 55 percent of the respondents sad good service was the most important.
2. About 21 percent said that price was the main reason
3. There was approximately 11 1/2 percent of the respondents that said convenience was most important.
4. Product knowledge was most important for only about 8 percent of the respondents.

The message is the same as yesterday; namely good service is a key driver to customer loyalty. Of course, returning to a store or company does not necessarily assure purchases.

Making it easy to do business has long been considered an excellent step to build trust and a good relationship. As has been noted in previous blogs just solving the customer problem with no hassles is often the most important aspect of the customer interaction.

The bottom line is reputation and customer service appear to be consistent drivers of loyalty. While location, price and product knowledge are also necessary they may not be the glue that sticks to customers and brings them back.