The Loyalty Link: How Loyal Employees Create Loyal Customers [Hardcover]

Dennis G. McCarthy (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 11, 1997

"The loyalty link is a must read for any marketer who wants to understand the power of customer enthusiasm." --Don Hudler, President Saturn Corporation

In an age of consumerism, downsizing, and frequent layoffs, it may seem that loyalty in the marketplace has fallen victim to the fast buck and the quick fix. In The Loyalty Link, however, Dennis McCarthy reveals that loyalty--between a business and its customers, between employer and employee--is a major competitive advantage. Businesses that develop loyalty links to their employees will consistently retain loyal customers and gain a competitive edge. McCarthy gives business owners, managers, and executives the ideas and tools to forge the crucial link between loyalty and profitability.

The Loyalty Link helps you strengthen the bonds of loyalty with your employees and customers alike. You'll discover that the interactions between employees and customers that foster loyalty are neither random events nor the product of well-rehearsed and closely supervised employee behavior. They result from an overall approach that encourages and rewards discretionary effort, and supports employee efforts with thorough training, adequate compensation, and a sense of appreciation.

In this eye-opening book you'll discover:
* Why satisfied customers are ripe for the picking by your competitors
* What it takes to exceed your customers' expectations and establish a loyalty link
* How to create a working environment in which employees go out of their way to exceed customer expectations
* Training methods that inspire loyalty rather than resentment
* Techniques for getting customers involved in your business


Whether you're a small business owner, a department manager, or an executive in a large corporation, The Loyalty Link shows you how to make your business more customer-friendly, more hospitable to your employees, and more profitable for yourself and your investors.

Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher

This book discusses what businesses need to do to increase employee loyalty and why. Using real-life examples, it shows how employee satisfaction is linked to employee loyalty and ultimately to customer satisfaction. This in turn leads to customer loyalty which will improve sales, competitiveness, and market share.

From the Inside Flap

"e;The loyalty link is a must read for any marketer who wants to understand the power of customer enthusiasm," — Don Hudler, President Saturn Corporation In an age of consumerism, downsizing, and frequent layoffs, it may seem that loyalty in the marketplace has fallen victim to the fast buck and the quick fix. In The Loyalty Link, however, Dennis McCarthy reveals that loyalty—between a business and its customers, between employer and employee—is a major competitive advantage. Businesses that develop loyalty links to their employees will consistently retain loyal customers and gain a competitive edge. McCarthy gives business owners, managers, and executives the ideas and tools to forge the crucial link between loyalty and profitability. The Loyalty Link helps you strengthen the bonds of loyalty with your employees and customers alike. You’ll discover that the interactions between employees and customers that foster loyalty are neither random events nor the product of well-rehearsed and closely supervised employee behavior. They result from an overall approach that encourages and rewards discretionary effort, and supports employee efforts with thorough training, adequate compensation, and a sense of appreciation. In this eye-opening book you’ll discover:

• Why satisfied customers are ripe for the picking by your competitors
• What it takes to exceed your customers’ expectations and establish a loyalty link
• How to create a working environment in which employees go out of their way to exceed customer expectations
• Training methods that inspire loyalty rather than resentment
• Techniques for getting customers involved in your business

Whether you’re a small business owner, a department manager, or an executive in a large corporation, The Loyalty Link shows you how to make your business more customer-friendly, more hospitable to your employees, and more profitable for yourself and your investors.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 198 pages
• Publisher: Wiley; 1 edition (April 11, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0471163899
• ISBN-13: 978-0471163893
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 5.9 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,707,243 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Simple, values based and totally practical, August 23, 1998

By 

Rachel ([e-mail]) (Auckland, New Zealand) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Loyalty Link: How Loyal Employees Create Loyal Customers (Hardcover)

Far too much resource is spent on building "whizz-bang" customer loyalty programmes that forget the basic premise - customer loyalty is built on the company culture. The Loyalty Link reminds us that customers deal with individual employees and those individuals must provide or exceed the service the customers expect if the company wants to retain them. Those same individuals will only ever provide or exceed that service level if they feel appreciated, supported, and well rewarded. McCarthy challenges the idea of companies who strive for customer satisfaction, stating that there is a wide gap between a "satisfied" customer and a "loyal" customer - one who will spend more with the company, refer others onto the company, cost you far less to service and be more tolerant when you do make a mistake. The Loyalty Link reinforces some management "concepts" (find what really motivates employees, empowering employees, self-managed team etc) which are not new, and takes a bold step further to say there is a real correlation between customer loyalty and employee loyalty and it is totally manageable.

A book I would recommend for all levels of management.

4.0 out of 5 stars Don't underestimate the role played by loyal employees, January 17, 2007

By 

David Laws "getbetterservice" (PA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Loyalty Link: How Loyal Employees Create Loyal Customers (Hardcover)

This is one of the few books I've seen that attempts to link the important role employees play in delivering an experience that builds customer loyalty.

Well known author and loyalty champion Fred Reichheld's early work; The Loyalty Effect, certainly laid the platform that employee, customer and shareholder loyalty are all key ingredients to success, but most authors, include Reichheld himself, have tended to focus on Customer Loyalty as the key driver.

So this book looks at a much under-discussed aspect of loyalty.

Like many business publications today, the real high interest content is found in the first half of the book. In these 100 or so pages, Dennis McCarthy presents a well prepared case for building customer loyalty. His argument draws from many proponents of the topic and he supplements this with good additional data looked at from a new perspective.

All good stuff! His description of `expectation gaps and the intended customer experience' was one of those `ah ha' moments for me, which has instant application value. The book just paid for itself right then and there! I liked the themes around customer loyalty, the Loyalty Deficit Cycle and the commitment needed to deliver on the promise. And I liked the way the argument built to support the importance of having loyal employees to realize this objective.

From then on though, the book goes on to look at ways to engage employees through approaches such as Employee Empowerment, Flexi time and Work-Life Balance. But it really didn't established how treating employees as they would like to be treated, builds loyalty. I get the idea, but I didn't see the causal relationship that leads to employee loyalty and how one would measure it.

The book left me wanting more. Perhaps it was meant to?