What are the factors affecting customer loyalty?

Question

do you have any web sites can help in this subject

Answer 1

1) Complexity of the product - ie, the more new knowledge I would have to learn in order to use a different model, the more likely I am to stick with the one I know.

2) After-sales service.

3) Costs of switching (money costs and time costs). I can change my chemist pretty easily if I live in a town with several chemist shops. It's more challenging to change my electricity supplier but I can do it. If I have to change my broadband ISP, that may involve new cables in the house, a new modem, reprogramming my laptop, and heaven knows what else.

4) Reputation for product reliability. We bought a duff radio from Hitachi about ten years ago and, because Comet wouldn't take it back for a refund, we've never bought Hitachi product again.

Answer 2

Trust . . .

Most companies realize the importance of building long lasting business relationships with their customers, however, how many of us really strive to create and maintain those relationships? Even though the core of our future business growth and current customer retention percentages are strongly linked to the quality of our relationships, many of us still refuse to put forth the effort to insure a solid foundation with our business partners.

Trust in our abilities as vendors and consultants is what will inevitably build a strong business relationship with our customers. Trust is the assured reliance on the character, ability, strength, or truth of someone or something. Without trust, our relationships and, in turn, our sales and growth will falter to a point at which we will no longer have our customers’ faith in our abilities or products. The result of mistrust among business relationships is the loss of current and future revenues. In short, we will lose our customers!

Fortunately, we have the capabilities to grow trust in our relationships. Trust is an organic substance. It grows naturally when fed and cared for properly. You feed and care for it by remembering your client’s name, by agreeing with them in principal, by always being there for them when problems arise, by knowing the ins and outs of their business and most of all, by following through on your promises.

Take politicians, for example, they know what the issues of the community are, they are aware of what it takes to correct the issues and they make promises to help. But, how often have you seen campaign promises go unfulfilled? How does that affect re-election campaigns? If voters are ignorant, and they are not, politicians could get away with saying anything they pleased and not following through. But politicians know they can’t base their campaigns on empty promises because that would be political suicide. They are some of the greatest sales people we know, and the ones that keep their promises and gain the voters’ trust are the ones that get re-elected.

It is true that most potential clients are naturally leery of new business relationships and, in general, do not blindly trust those of us who make a living by supplying customers’ needs. To get in the door, we must first develop a perceived trust that the products and services we provide will be delivered as the customer expects. This is where most vendors who are worth their weight excel. But, being able to convince someone that our products and services are worth while is only the first of two steps. The second is to turn perception into reality by developing trust.

Customers that trust us will allow us to make mistakes as long as we fix them. They will also give us advice on new products and services we may not have thought of initially. Strong business relationships can, and often do, open doors to other potential prospects by representing us to their friends and acquaintances. Word of mouth advertising is still the best and least expensive way to grow our business.

Vision, guiding principles, customer focus, values and trust are some of today’s buzzwords in the business community. We must all strive to make these buzzwords not only a part of our vocabulary, but a major part of our day to day business. As many of the products and services we sell become increasingly more competitive, our edge must be to build strong business relationships.