Written by two highly successful business coaches and management consultants, this book explains how to improve profitability by focusing on turning a business's already satisfied customers into highly satisfied customers by removing their sense of risk. The authors also provide a fail-safe method for identifying the risks inherent in your business.
Every business owner or manager knows that creating satisfied customers is key to establishing customer loyalty and building a business. But many are applying the wrong strategy in trying to achieve customer loyalty: instead of focusing on consistent execution of the company’s value proposition on a day-to-day basis, they waste their efforts constantly chasing after new customers or trying to address every complaint. Using research to demonstrate how striving to turn merely satisfied customers into highly satisfied customers significantly affects loyalty behaviors and in turn boosts profits, Capturing Loyalty lays out a new approach to a very old problem. Additionally, it presents a blueprint for identifying the perceived risks to consumers inherent in your business—many of which are not readily apparent to the casual or even invested observer—and explains how to minimize those risks.
Authors Larson and McClellan explain why trying to ensure 100% customer satisfaction is not the path to achieving customer loyalty, and that the reality is that customer dissatisfaction is rarely the result of an error a business has made—two concepts that many initially find counterintuitive. You’ll learn how to offer your company’s products and services in a manner that creates highly satisfied customers, understand the true value and vast economic benefits of having highly satisfied customers, and see why highly satisfied customers are actually cheaper to serve than others. The book presents a clear and comprehensive plan for creating a loyalty initiative suitable to your business and cascading it through your entire organization, from the C-suite to the line employees.
Features
- Provides research-based insights into consumer behavior across a diverse series of businesses, including health care, food service, hotels, pharmaceuticals, and retail
- Demonstrates that the idea of there being a linear relationship between customer satisfaction and customer loyalty is a myth
- Refutes the oft-heard objection that creating highly satisfied customers is too costly by showing that highly satisfied customers are consistently 2–5 percent cheaper to serve than satisfied ones
- Offers business owners and managers a proven methodology for better understanding the key aspects of a company's product and service offerings that create highly satisfied customers
- Examines the organizational challenges inherent in deploying a customer loyalty initiative and discusses ways that successful companies have overcome these challenges
John A. Larson is the senior partner at John Larson and Company, a firm specializing in helping clients increase their growth and profitability by improving the loyalty of the customers they serve. Prior to starting his own firm, Larson held positions at McKinsey & Co. and Monitor Company. He has served clients in a broad series of industries including retailing, pharmaceuticals and healthcare, financial services, office products, restaurants, grocery stores, and hotels. Larson's articles have appeared in publications such as Business Horizons and Compensation Review. Larson holds an MBA with distinction from the Wharton School, an MA in economic statistics from the University of Wisconsin, and a BA (magna cum laude) from the College of the Holy Cross.
Bennett E. McClellan is the chief catalytic officer of NBM Research. He is an academic, author, executive coach, and management consultant with a global practice. He has based his practice in Southeast Asia since 2012, where he has helped start up a half dozen new colleges or management training programs. Prior to launching his freelance career, McClellan worked with McKinsey & Co., Arthur D. Little Inc., and PricewaterhouseCoopers. He is author of The Total Question Workout: The Complete Guide to Asking Better Questions to Get Better Answers for Running Your Business or Your Life as well as many articles on various topics. McClellan earned his PhD from the Peter F. Drucker Graduate School of Management at Claremont Graduate University, his MBA with high distinction form Harvard Business School, and his MFA from UCLA's School of Theater, Film and Television.
Reviews
"Research is current and well-explained. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through professionals."—Choice, March 1, 2018
"Solid advice for businesses of all sizes."—Library Journal, March 16, 2018
“Through research and success stories, Capturing Loyalty offers a new approach to a very old problem, and advances the field significantly for the first time in a decade.”—Forbes, 2018 Summer Reading List, June 1, 2018
“In my experience, one of the most effective ways to materially increase customer loyalty and commitment is by first focusing on employee loyalty and commitment. Said another way, the performance of an organization’s employees (e.g., sales force, customer support, store personnel) has a major impact on the quality of a customer’s experience. I had the pleasure of successfully working with John Larson to improve both employee and customer satisfaction during my time at Staples. I have been a strong believer in his approach ever since.”—Dave Almeda, Chief People Officer, Kronos. Voted “Chief Resources Officer of the Year” by HRO Today
“Capturing Loyalty offers fresh and compelling insights on what generates high customer satisfaction in both consumer and business-to-business transactions and, with it, market success and a pathway to attractive growth.”—John A. Luke Jr., Non-Executive Chairman, WestRock
“The distinction between customer satisfaction and customer loyalty is fine, and the relationship between the two can be capricious. Capturing Loyalty provides an invaluable map through the hazards and pitfalls of satisfaction in the pursuit of truly, enduringly—and profitably—loyal customers.” —Jon R. Katzenbach, Founder and Senior Sponsor of the Katzenbach Center at PwC Strategy (US) LLC, and Coauthor of The Wisdom of Teams: Creating the High-Performance Organization
“I have always been amazed at the lack of self-awareness many companies exhibit with regard to their customers. Unless you know exactly who your target customers are it is impossible to determine what they want, much less market to them effectively. Capturing Loyalty guides you through a logical process to identify your high-potential customers and serve their most pressing needs.”—Lawrence M. Higby, Former Chief Executive Officer, Apria Healthcare
“Implementation is the focus of Capturing Loyalty. Many authors, myself included, have focused their attention on the importance of customer loyalty, the best way to measure it, and the economics associated with achieving different levels of customer loyalty. What most authors have not provided is the detailed roadmap (with all the possible hazards along the way) of how to get to the desired levels of customer loyalty. During the past three decades, Larson and McClellan have been working with clients in a variety of settings to profitably increase customer loyalty. They have seen the pitfalls and complexities. They have seen the failures and successes. They understand the organizational, cultural, and leadership challenges. They share their insights in Capturing Loyalty.”—Earl Sasser, UPS Professor of Service Management, Emeritus, Harvard Business School
