How to guarantee your customers come back

Posted by Kevin Stirtz on February 12, 2010

0 comments | 763 reads

Sometimes you can keep customers coming back by sending them away.

After the holidays, one of our readers sent me a customer service story that explains why he will continue to be a loyal Best Buy customer. He and his wife were buying a product that needed an accessory to make it work. So they asked the Best Buy employee what they needed. He told them.

Then he said they could get a better product at Radio Shack.

While I’m not sure his management would approve of this, his customers sure did. They appreciated his honesty. They understood he was trying to help them, not just make a sale.

By sending a customer into the arms of their competition, this employee built a huge amount of trust and credibility for himself. He did the same for Best Buy.

Because these customers now feel greater loyalty to Best Buy, the company, not just this employee. Their loyalty to the company just went up. In fact, he went on to say their next purchase is “guaranteed” to be from Best Buy.

How’s that for loyalty?

Kevin Stirtz

Kevin Stirtz is a web marketing consultant. He uses SEO, social media and local search strategies and tools to help businesses attract and keep more customers. He is a Certified Inbound Marketing Professional and has written two books about marketing and customer loyalty. Kevin lives in the Twin Cities metro area of Minneapolis and St. Paul, MN.

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