As many of you heard, I’m moving across country. I think a lot of people know because my stats show that views of that announcement have far outweighed the number of followers I have across various social networks. Thanks for the clicks and for reading.
Moving across country, for me, is always a timed affair. I spend more hours planning and orchestrating my move than actually lifting boxes. I bought my car over the Internet and it’s waiting for me when I get there. I’ve reserved my hotel and put a hold deposit down on a house I really like and yes that house has already been added to location networks so future friends can check in there. Moving is also my chance to start new. I sell things and buy things. I’m liquidating by getting rid of some things I can do without or things that can be upgraded for a few bucks more. My computer setup (that so many people have featured on blogs such as “dream setups .com” has been sold to a different friends. I’m having trouble getting rid of the 30″ Dell LCD due to its size and price. Ping me if you’re interested.
When discussing my buying habits with a friend on Twitter, his question was about my brand loyalty. He made the reference that I stick with a pretty small pool of companies in my buying habits. I’m going to list a few below if you haven’t heard of them.
- Express Jeans and Polos
- Gap Button Downs
- Abercrombie Underwear
- Shure Headphones
- Bose Speaker Systems
- Sony Televisions & Home theatre equipment
- Apple Computers
- Dell Computers
- AT&T or Verizon
- Starbucks Coffee
- Brenthaven or Chrome Bags
- Ford or Toyota Cars
- United Airlines or Virgin America
- Nike Shoes
- This knife store
- This gun store
- Canon Cameras
- Logitech Webcams
- iPhone or Blackberry
- Google Apps or Exchange Server
- LaCie Hard Drives
- Sephora for personal items
- Bank of America
Okay, we get it Adam. You’re picky about where you buy from. Why did I choose these specific companies for all of my purchases of those devices. I live in a nation full of choice where every product has over 100 competitors begging for my dollar. I have choice to spend my money where I want. There are some steps to gaining my trust and having me as a loyal customer for a lifetime.
First impressions
These are crucial. First of all, I generally don’t buy your product the first time. Remember, I’m loyal to another company so my first experience generally involves using a friend’s or being in a situation or at a company where they use that product exclusively. Who my friends buy from and what my company uses is a huge factor. That’s only the beginning but first impressions of your product help forge that lifetime of loyalty.
I look at design, comfort, taste, smell and usability but what I’m most serious about is the human touch. Can a real human help me with my problem in swiftly and professionally? If so, your product may not be the best but I’m going to be hooked and will remain hooked until someone shows me better service than you have. Loyalty programs are the single biggest reason I return to a store or company to give them money. This is why I hope and pray that someone will figure out coupons using my location. Please allow a bar to give me 2 for 1 drinks based on my loyalty at that spot.
I’m not tough to crack. No company is guilty until proven innocent. I give every company equal chances even if I’m loyal to another.
I would have never bought a Ford car until last year when the company gave me two cars each for an entire week with a gas and lodging budget and said, “go have fun. go for a road trip.” Then a few of their VPs read my reviews and tweeted them out. Scott Monty DMed me thanking me for taking that drive. This has a huge impact on me and the first site I visited when thinking about buying a car next month was Ford’s.
When I have account issues, I DM @BofA_Help (Bank of America’s Twitter account). Within an hour, someone calls me and works out my issues. The same goes for AT&T and for Comcast. I am one SMS away from a real human calling me and figuring out my problems. Companies that do this will have me for life. An Assistant to the CEO of Starbucks called me after my complaint about a bad experience on Twitter and they sent me a care package and some other incentives to keep using Starbucks. Even a PR Rep for Guinness beer sent me their anniversary brew and some bar towels as a thanks. These people found me through my loyalty of their brand, through blogs, tweets and Flickr photos. Search for any of these companies on my flickr stream (even shooters’ gun store in Jacksonville) and you’ll see photos I’ve taken there. That’s my way of thanking them for being there for me as a customer.
A Lifetime of Loyalty
The product must be up to my standards. If it’s a piece of technology, it has to not break and be reliable. I’ll pay as much as 50% over the price of a competing product if the company is reachable within 5 minutes of something breaking and if that product is reliable.
I also am loyal to companies that have shortcuts to coupons, service and saving money if you’re “in the know.” Did you know that for $50 more, you can buy a computer through Dell Small Business and get 1-3 years of on-site in-person repair of that computer? You can pay a little more and someone on the same day as your hard drive failure or motherboard burning of will come to your house with the part and replace it for you within 4 hours. Not many people know that. HP may have better and cheaper machines and better overal support but Dell will come to my house 4 years from now and replace any part of that machine within 4 hours. That’s service that makes me a loyal customer for life.
Every 2 weeks, Starbucks sends me a free drink coupon in the mail for my loyalty and they greet me when I come in any of the 5 stores I frequent with “hi Adam. the usual?”When I told my morning Starbucks I was moving they said, “when is your last day? Okay, drinks are on us that day. anything you want.”This Starbucks gets nothing from me after that day. They’re not going to see me the next day but as a thanks for 6 months of spending $5.50 every morning, they’re going to give me a send off gift. I’ll be loyal to Starbucks for life.
Service and company accessibility is always more important than product quality but if quality is bad, I’ll do all I can to be a tester to help them improve that quality. It’s a 2-way street. I help them and they help me. At some point, I have to say “goodbye.” I’ve only done this a few times. The folks at Etymotic Research (competitors to Shure) treated me like I didn’t know audio which I don’t. They told me Shures are for people who don’t understand how sound should be received. They told me I’m just a kid with no taste. They gave me some units to test and then charged my card when I accidentally kept those headphones beyond 14 days. When I gave honest feedback, they cut me off as a press person and simply called me stupid (in a nutshell). I’ll never buy or recommend those headphones again. It’s a two-way street. I’ve spent over $3,000 on Shure headphones since 2005 and will continue to do so and recommend them to friends. Etymotic won’t get my support anymore.
When do I move on? Well, service and support are huge but it’s also the product. If the product is bad, I’m done. United Airlines is an example of bad product but comfort. I understand their website, I have people there to reach out to if things go wrong but it’s a cheap airline and I get what I pay for. I know what to expect. They’re not great but they’re always the same. There’s no up or down and they don’t try to set the bar high so I’m never disappointed with their service but if Virgin America Power adapters don’t work or I get on a flight that doesn’t have Wi-Fi, expect a few tweets in anger even though I’ll happily board a United flight with zero amenities. VA has set expectations and if they take those away, I’ll start to lose loyalty.
The Cost of Loyalty
It’s expensive. Perks, freebies and knowing me by name means a lot but the price of this is pretty high. I’ve never been the kind of person that only buys premium products with a perceived better quality and service and I’m not one of those people that hates on a company when my $20,000 Bang-Olufsen speaker system doesn’t rock my socks off. Instead, I start with the cheapest set of earphones a company sells or cheapest iPhone case or cheapest and smallest latte and I rate it, reach out to the company and start a conversation. I mention them on Twitter and see if they respond. Over time, I weed out the companies that simply don’t care.
The cost of loyalty is expensive because I generally upgrade to the next best thing a company has. If I’m loyal to Shure and they release a new pair of headphones, I’ll skip meals to buy that new pair. I have to own it. This mentality has slipped a bit lately. I bought an iPad after everyone else and still haven’t gotten an iPhone 4. Ultimate Ears has this $1200 12 driver set of earphones and I haven’t bought those yet. I have the money but haven’t bought them and, for the past 6 months, I’ve been on a 3 year old MacBook and am waiting patiently for a new MacBook Air. I wait these days for things and don’t find myself skipping meals to buy whatever is the latest.
Loyalty as a Business Model
I give huge kudos to any company that their success is based on loyalty. It’s hard work. Every job I’ve worked in where I was directly involved with customer interaction would yield high results. I’m not boasting but I love seeing reviews of products I’ve worked on where the person says, “and they’re so responsive, so helpful and so easy to get in touch with. Whoever is running their support team needs a raise.” I’ve gotten letters from ex-clients back when I did IT who said that I was the only person who would answer their calls 24/7. I’d drop by on my lunch break to make sure they were happy and I’d remember every name of their employees and keep a mental list of their common issues and needs.
This kind of attentiveness to every customer will lead to prolonged success. More companies should do this and more people like me will line up for service, product quality and happiness when it comes to dealing with them.
Thanks, as always, for reading. Sorry but I’m not going to edit this one. If there were grammar mistakes…well sorry.