How does your company define customer loyalty? Why is customer loyalty a more important strategic concern than customer satisfaction? Highly satisfied customers leave vendors every day when they are presented with what they perceive to be a superior value proposition. Highly loyal customers switch vendors at a much lower rate because they believe their preferred vendor already offers them a superior value proposition.

Customer loyalty can be viewed as the totality of feelings and attitudes held by a customer that results in the customer intending on repeat purchases from a preferred retail jewelry company. Loyal customers make repeat visits to the companies they are loyal to. This is a critical difference. Loyal customers are very different from highly price-sensitive customers. Jewelry marketers need to be sure to test their marketing campaigns to be sure that they are attracting new customers who have the potential to become loyal customers. Highly price-sensitive customers, conversely, are seldom loyal, because they decline to acknowledge the added value offered by jewelry companies that support higher prices.

Loyal customers will offer referrals to family and friends. Too often jewelry companies fail to develop training programs to help sales associates become comfortable in asking for referrals. Jewelry marketers need to consider how to creatively thank loyal customers and ask for more referrals. Word-of-mouth marketing is possible when a company has earned loyal customers. How might your company leverage customer loyalty to gain more referrals to get a jump on holiday sales?

JCK