Seven Power Strategies for Building Customer Loyalty [Hardcover]

Paul R. Timm PhD (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 15, 2001

Nothing is more important to a company's long-term health than customer loyalty - yet too many companies settle for empty customer service slogans, misguided programs, and sporadic training. This powerful book introduces a complete program that virtually guarantees customer retention and business growth - including high-impact tactics for consistently exceeding customer expectations through "A-plus" value, personality, information, convenience, and more.

Editorial Reviews

Review

This book pulls you to the mirror for a look at everything you are doing to satisfy & retain customers. -- Quality Progress

About the Author

Timm is Professor and Chair of the Department of Organizational Leadership & Strategy, the Marriott School of Management, Brigham Young University.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 224 pages
• Publisher: AMACOM; 1st edition (April 15, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 081440569X
• ISBN-13: 978-0814405697
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.2 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,101,757 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Both a Destination and a Journey, July 13, 2001

By 

Robert Morris (Dallas, Texas) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Seven Power Strategies for Building Customer Loyalty (Hardcover)

There are dozens of excellent books which discuss the subject of "customer satisfaction" and/or "customer loyalty." This is among the best of them. Many of those who read my reviews already know that, whenever appropriate, I recommend that several books on the same general subject be consulted. One of the greatest challenges now facing companies is to attract, hire, develop, and then keep the workers they need. A comparable challenge involves customers as well as the additional need to recapture those lost. Timm has much of value to say about that need in Chapter 3 when he discusses Strategy 2: Recover Dissatisfied Customers. (Jill Griffin and her co-authors focus on this same need in Customer WinBack. I also recommend Jac Fitz-enz's recently published The E-Aligned Enterprise in which he offers some excellent strategies re customer recapture.) As Timm skillfully explains, building customer loyalty means building human relationships and that requires constant and committed effort. He introduces twhat he calls the "A-Plus" standard, recommending specific strategies and tactics to achieve and maintain it in terms of value (Chapter 5), information (Chapter 6), personality (Chapter 7), and convenience (Chapter 8). He then concentrates on "Actualizing the A-Plus Customer Loyalty Strategy" in Chapter 9, the final chapter. Along the way, Timm includes a series of ingenious "Worksheets" for the reader to complete. These serve two important functions: They stress key points and they enable the reader to measure (with reasonable if not precise) accuracy the gap between customers' expectations and customers' perceptions of performance relative to their expectations. (We all know that customer perceptions ARE realities.) Appendix A provides a "Sample Generic Consulting Proposal" (well-done but probably not of much interest to some readers) and Appendix B provides "A Quick Review of the Seven Power Strategies" which is also well-done and will be useful to those who wish to review key concepts later.

Timm's approach is intentionally practical. His insights and recommendations are obviously based on a wealth of real-world experience. As with any other book in which there is also an abundance of check lists, do's and don's, mini-case studies, assessment mechanisms, self-audits, reminders, etc., it remains for each reader of this book to select, correlate, and then integrate whatever is most appropriate to her or his own needs and interests. With all due respect to Covey, there really isn't anything magical (at least in the secular world) about the number seven. Timm could have just as easily recommended anywhere from five to 25 specific strategies worthy of careful consideration. Those he does suggest are as good as any but will be effective only if they are implemented with sufficient passion, precision, prudence, focus, tenacity, and (yes) patience. Only such sustained effort can activate the "power" to which this book's title refers.

When concluding these brief remarks, I presume to offer one (probably obvious) caveat: At a time when change is the only constant, no matter which specific strategies you select, be prepared to revise or abandon those which prove inadequate. Extensive research reveals that, on average, U.S. companies lose half their customers within five years. Given the assistance available from Timm and other experts, you and your organization can certainly improve on that.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Satisfy your customers!, February 14, 2002

By 

Kelvin Lui Kah Wai (Hong Kong) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Seven Power Strategies for Building Customer Loyalty (Hardcover)

From the Department of Marketing, City University of Hong Kong.
Nowadays service providers put more emphasis on customer satisfaction and loyalty. This book is about to tell you how to build customer loyalty by 7 strategies.
It first told about the importance of customer loyalty and the problems of disconnection between service intentions and reality such as ambiguous goals.
Then the 1st strategy was ¡¥Identify Customer Turnoffs¡¦, to identify whether customer turnoffs are value (e.g. quality not as good as expected), systems (e.g. slow service), or people (e.g. employees not helpful). It was the best advertising with decline of customer turnoffs and the cost of a lost customer was so great (there is a formula to calculate the loss in the book). The 2nd strategy was ¡¥Recover Dissatisfied Customers¡¦, after knowing the causes of customer turnoffs, service providers should try to recover dissatisfied customers by paying more attention to receiving complaints and getting feedbacks. The 3rd strategy was ¡¥Create Positive Imbalance with Customers¡¦, satisfied did not represent motivated to be a loyal customer. Therefore, service providers should try to give more than what customers expected so that customers would be more loyal once upon they thought they received more than paid. The 4th strategy was ¡¥Give Customers A-Plus Value¡¦, service providers should try to build A-plus value with packaging, guarantee and warranty, goodness of product fit, memorable experiences, uniqueness and shared values, credibility, as well as other aspects so that customers could receive more than they expected. The 5th strategy was ¡¥Give Customers A-Plus Information¡¦, the information given to customers should be more timely, clearer, or more useful than they anticipate. The 6th strategy was ¡¥Show Customers A-Plus Personality¡¦, developing own personality could be a kind of communication to customers from service providers. The 7t strategy was ¡¥Give Customers A-Plus Convenience¡¦, it could be delivered in several ways, for example, telling customers how long things will take and giving more signage to customers.
After understanding these 7 strategies, it was time to actualize them. First was planning an A-Plus strategy. Next was organizing and staffing. Third is leading and motivating. Fourth was controlling and evaluating results. Fifth was harvesting A-Plus ideas. Final was initiating and sustaining A-Plus customer loyalty strategy.
All in all, you are recommended to read this book first if you want to build customer loyalty.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The Best Book to Gain Success, February 15, 2002

By 

Hui Wing Hei (Vicky) (Hong Kong) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Seven Power Strategies for Building Customer Loyalty (Hardcover)

In the competitve world, you have to retain your customers and attract new customers if you want to success in your industry. But, what can you do in order to success? The answer is that we have to learn what is customer loyalty. After understand it, you can let your marketing strategies to be more meaningful. Thus, this book can help you a lot.

In this book, it can give out seven strategies to build the customer loyalty. It states that you are not only to satisfy your customers, but also give the extra benfit to them in a positve way. Thus, customers can get over what they want. Hence, they will be more willing to keep business with your company. Although you think that it has succeed, it is not enough. The think you have to do is to build the world-of-mouth. In this book, it can also tells you how to build the word-of-mouth.

Besides, the book also tells you how your frontline can do in order to satisfy your customers, such as their outlook, their espression and their technique etc.

If you buy the book, you can learn much more about how to build customer loyalty and how it is important for you to success.