SHIFTING THE LOYALTY CURVE – I just read this most interesting excerpt from the Sales, Marketing, And Communications Practice, Customer Contact Council®.  The focus of their paper is what makes customers more “loyal” and they provide a clear differentiation between “loyalty” and “satisfaction”.

The results of their in-depth research revealed a surprising gap between customer satisfaction and customer loyalty.  Soft skills have the greatest impact on delivering customer satisfaction but reducing customer effort had the great impact on increasing loyalty.   This was shown true to such a degree that even “very satisfied” customers defected where their effort exceeded their threshold – a whopping 96% of customers who put forth high effort to resolve their issues were “disloyal” compared to 9% with low effort.

 “The Council also concludes that compared to NPS®, an effort-based measure

is better suited for the service channel. Effort is not only a better financial predictor,

but it is also more relevant, as it is the best indicator of loyalty.”

Follow this link to read the entire except Shifting the Loyalty Curve highly recommend this read!