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Taking customer loyalty for granted

// September 12th, 2007 // 1 Comment » // Marketing

When I was in College, a friend of mine told me something that happened to him which stroke me as very funny at first but I found out later that it bared a very important lesson beneath:

This friend of mine used to go to the same restaurant to eat almost every day of the week, at the same hour. This restaurant was across his school so it was pretty convenient for him and he was welcomed almost as family. He knew everybody by name and so did everybody that worked there.

His lunch hours were different then most people as his classes ended a little late. One day he happened to be around school on a busy weekend and went in to eat. After waiting for more then half an hour and after several reminders he finally got angry and asked one of the waiters that he knew quite well, what was going on. The waiter replied: “You are right, but man, you just came on customer time!!”

(The term “Customer Time” may strike as strange, the event didn’t happen in an English spoken country but the literal translation is correct).

I started wondering, when does a loyal customer become so loyal that he becomes family ?

Because with family comes the feeling of being accustomed to a certain presence and taking that presence for granted is what leads to broken hearts or loneliness, which we try to erase by replacing with new experiences.

New customer acquisition has its own weight in the growth of a business. But it is our loyal customer base (our family) that supports us and allows us to chase new customers in the first place. Taking their loyalty for granted will only make it easier for them to go away on the first opportunity.

“In all affairs it’s a healthy thing now and then to hang a question mark on the things you have long taken for granted” ~Bertrand Russel

Sadok Kohen