That’s the message of a whitepaper by Reynolds and Reynolds that was recently published in Automotive News. The article explores what dealers should and should not focus on when trying to determine customer satisfaction and loyalty.
The white paper’s conclusions are based on a McKinsey&Company; survey of 27,000 American consumers, a Corporate Executive Board study of 97,000 consumers and businesses, and Gallup Organization results.
Among the key conclusions?
- Customers whose expectations have been exceeded are no more loyal than those whose expectations have simply been met.
- Most companies underestimate the value of simply meeting customer expectations and overvalue the importance of exceeding them.
According to the whitepaper, “Customers simply want their question answered or their product fixed so they can go back to their lives. They enjoy a delightful experience in the moment but quickly forget it and do not factor it into future decisions.”
The Gallup Organization, which has interviewed more than one billion customers, has tried to identify what contributes to customer satisfaction, according to the white paper. A book by Marcus Buckingham and Curt Coffman about the Gallup results identifies four key factors to achieving customer loyalty:
- Accuracy: Customers don’t care about courteous or friendly employees if the job is not done correctly.
- Availability: Customers want a “frictionless” experience that will get them back into their lives quickly and seamlessly such as an easy-to-use website.
- Partnership: Customers want to feel understood. Do dealers have the right information at the right time to personalize the customer experience for each person?
- Advice: Organizations that help customers learn create the strongest bonds such as providing advice on vehicle service and seasonal maintenance.
The whitepaper further explains that without accuracy and availability, a dealer will never achieve customer loyalty. Partnership and advice are the “glue” that hold together customer satisfaction and loyalty, but only if the first two factors have been met.
The whitepaper concludes with this advice to dealers:
- Focus on the customer journey, not individual episodes. Dealers should “walk a day in the customer’s shoes and experience every part of the dealership through their eyes.”
- Deliver a frictionless customer experience. Meet the customer’s needs in the most efficient way possible and improve areas where customers experience the most problems.
- Make sure technologies are in place so dealership employees can respond consistently, accurately and in a personalized way to a customer on the phone or in person.
Comments for Whitepaper: Getting Customers to Return
There are no comments yet.