Customer Loyalty Will Keep Your Business Alive

There was one embarrassing case about public service in my country. There was a middle class mom with 2 little children who wrote a complaint e-mail about hospital service to a friend. The e-mail spread among friends and eventually was read by the hospital. Instead of worked on that complaint the hospital sued that woman of defamation. She was arrested on May 13 and spent three weeks in custody without charge. This caused massive public rage and uproar. This forced authorities to release her after being critized by various government agencies. You can read the news here. The English translation of her e-mail is here

What can be learned from this case ? I learn that the public service should not do that. Gossips, news, and complaints can spread widely through the internet like virus accurate or not. Instead of having what their want, the company which not take their customer complaint wisely will loose everything. If the hospital was wise enough in handling the case, I'm pretty sure that they won't loose such this great (The hospital is claimed to shut their operation by The People Representatives Board if they're not cancel all the charges againts her). This will cause great lost of course. Public service should give a satisfaction to their customer. Customer satisfaction will lead to the customer loyalty. This what makes the business alive and grow.

Customer loyalty is the behaviour of repeat customer. Customer loyalty is as well as the people who give good credits, reviews, and testimonials. This is very important to a business. We can say that about 80 percent business projects are from 20 percent loyal ones. They are satisfied customers who make a repeat order. A satisfied customer will make us free publicity from mouth words. They will tell their friends, family, about our products and services. Unfortunately, many business neglect this fact. They are not treating their customer well therefore they will loose the chance of these prospective loyal customers. The cost in looking new customer is definitely much bigger than maintain one.

• Maintain good communication to the customer. You can do it by e-mailling, sending letter, monthly flier, or birthday and holiday greeting cards. Some company sometime call me and ask about their product which I took. Like formula milk company that keep calling me to ask about my opinion and satisfaction using their product.
• The company should train their staff to give the customer excellent service. Like politeness and respect the customer. The company should loyal to their employees. If the CEO is loyal to their employees, they will do the same to the customer.
• Give the customer all informations that they need. Not intend to praise, but the Singaporean Hospitals are great in doing this.
• The company should learn about their different customer segments as they can.
• Find out what, when, and how the customer purchase the company's products or services and improve the service using these informations.
• The company should generate opportunities for feedback. It's not easy to listen feedback. Sometime the company feel that they just fine and do not need feedback. Feedback is important to help the company develop and maintain good services.
• The company could develop the appropriate technology like good database system that can help to record, organise, and plan the contacts with customer even better.
• Just treat others the way we would like to be treated.