Loyalty Myths: Hyped Strategies That Will Put You Out of Business -- and Proven Tactics That Really Work [Hardcover]

Timothy L. Keiningham (Author), Terry G. Vavra (Author), Lerzan Aksoy (Author), Henri Wallard (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 15, 2005

In Loyalty Myths, the authors have assembled 53 of the most common beliefs about customer loyalty – all of them wrong or misconceived! Each of the beliefs in this book is debunked with real-world examples. While other books speak in platitudes; this book is the only one to validate each proposition with real data.

Granted unprecedented access to customer records from a variety of multi-national corporations. Through these records, Ipsos Loyalty was able to precisely track the impact of this customer-centric construct on actual purchasing behavior. The authors’ findings and conclusions will stun business leaders around the world. The lessons learned from these provide a true guide for the proper use of customer loyalty.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Strong stuff...[the authors] offer some well-researched loyalty truths" (Telegraph, November 2005)

"...full of ideas and suggestions...likely to be useful to anyone working in the field." (Research Magazine, May 2006)

From the Inside Flap

It's time to tear down the false idols of customer loyalty!

CEOs worldwide cite customer loyalty as their most important strategic objective, spending billions of dollars to hold onto their customers. Thousands of books and even more articles have been written about customer loyalty and everyone agrees it's vital. But are they right?

In Loyalty Myths, renowned authors from one of the world's premier business research firms reveal the ugly truth about customer loyalty—almost everything you've been told about it is wrong!

In fact, most popular loyalty maxims are based on faulty data or on a faulty reading of good data. For instance, most managers take it as gospel that all customers become more valuable over time. But it's not true! Some do just the opposite; they cost the company money over time. A CEO who keeps the wrong customers can lose millions! But business leaders do it every day because they fail to fully understand customer loyalty.

To set things straight, Loyalty Myths critiques 53 of the most common beliefs about customer loyalty and debunks them fully with hard science and even harder data. Using real-world examples and the latest facts and figures, the authors smash the platitudes and the easy assumptions about customer loyalty and offer real-world, fact-based methodologies that really do keep customers coming back.

But how do you know the authors are right? Granted unprecedented access to customer records from a wide variety of multinational corporations, they were able to track the impact of customer loyalty initiatives on actual purchasing. Their findings will force you to set aside the simple half-truths you thought would work and show you how to leverage your customer loyalty for maximum profit.

Customer loyalty is an important factor in the success of any business, but by oversimplifying it many businesses have failed to realize its full power and effectiveness. For any business leader who wants to truly understand customer loyalty—and get real results from customer loyalty programs—this book finally speaks the truth.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 272 pages
• Publisher: Wiley; 1 edition (September 15, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0471743151
• ISBN-13: 978-0471743156
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.2 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (19 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,013,193 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Big hype, poor delivery, July 27, 2007

By 

Wilbur (Minneapolis, MN USA) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Loyalty Myths: Hyped Strategies That Will Put You Out of Business -- and Proven Tactics That Really Work (Hardcover)

If you are going to create a book that so directly trashes thousands of its predecessors and the work of many people that have devoted their careers to this subject (including many well-regarded contributions to the Harvard Business Review), you had better come up with something special. This book is not it. It is replete with dreadful generalizations and - contrary to the jacket - is not loaded with solid case studies. In fact, it is challenging to relate the few case studies that are quoted in here to the point that they are trying to make. For example, the authors use a lengthy disposition on France Telecom's capital over-expansion and its subsequent near-bankruptcy as an example of failed customer loyalty. This is like suggesting that the sinking of the titanic was as a result of having engines that were too powerful: Broadly related but absolutely fails to support the assertion. This is true of much of this book. When you feel the authors are finally about to bring something of actionable value they leave you wanting, making broad hypotheses and utterly failing to support them. This book really has one premise: "not all customers are the same"; and anyone for whom that's a revelation should not be in marketing anyway. This book read like many consultant's reports - it is big on conjecture, assumptions and assertions, and very light on any supporting evidence or actionable insights. Overall this was an extraordinarily disappointing and frustrating read.

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Loyalty Myths in Review, September 13, 2005

By 

Joseph Molz (NYC) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Loyalty Myths: Hyped Strategies That Will Put You Out of Business -- and Proven Tactics That Really Work (Hardcover)

This book delivers breakthrough thinking with an incredible amount of new understanding on how to make your customers more satisfied and have it truly pay off in profit growth. I already see three messages in Loyalty Myths that are particularly relevant for my company and that we can act on now. First, we need to spend more time identifying which customers we should focus most of our attention on, instead of throwing resources at the entire customer base. Second, we need to measure not just our customer retention but how much share of wallet our customers spend with us. And third, customers want good service and they also want to feel smart about using us, so we need our service operations and brand management teams to work together instead of independently and possibly at odds with each other. This book delivers a wake up call to any business that still approaches customer satisfaction in conventional ways that don't produce real benefits. Then, it lays out a new approach of smart customer management to grow loyalty and profits. I recommend this to every business person who knows they can get better results.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Welcome Addition, September 29, 2005

By 

Eugene W. Anderson "Gene Anderson" (Ann Arbor, MI USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Loyalty Myths: Hyped Strategies That Will Put You Out of Business -- and Proven Tactics That Really Work (Hardcover)

This book is a welcome addition to an area of business where there are many misconceptions, highly touted anecdotal evidence tends to swamp more grounded empirical findings, and writing tends to be somewhat evangelical, if not apocryphal. Loyalty Myths is a very accessible book written in plain language that should be useful to anyone involved in loyalty initiatives, but especially those charged with leading such activities. The authors are loyalty consultants with strong connections to academe, making them well-positioned observers of the state-of-the-art in both theory and practice in this important area. The book identifies the most widely held beliefs about loyalty and outs them to the test using what they know from their own practice, as well as what they have garnered from their own research and that of other experts in the area. It also does a very nice job of laying out what the authors have learned about what really does work. I recommend it very highly.