Loyalty Myths: Hyped Strategies That Will Put You Out of Businessand Proven Tactics That Really Work (Hardcover)

by Timothy L. Keiningham (Author), Terry G. Vavra (Author), Lerzan Aksoy (Author), Henri Wallard (Author) "No industry provides a better example of the misconception of customer loyalty as a pervasive corporate goal than the banking industry..." (more)
Key Phrases: most loyalty programs, loyalty myths, costly customers, First Chicago, Loyalty Truth, Harvard Business Review (more...)

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)

Product Description
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.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 272 pages
• Publisher: Wiley (September 15, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0471743151
• ISBN-13: 978-0471743156
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars See all reviews (18 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #257,836 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 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 (REAL NAME)

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 6 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 (REAL NAME)

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.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Dispelling Loyalty Myths, September 19, 2005

By	Stephen Clemens (Nashville, TN) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Loyalty Myths does an outstanding job of dispelling commonly held beliefs - some almost sacrosanct - about customer loyalty through an effective mixture of anecdotes, research, and theory. It reads much more easily than most business books while not being completely quantitative. The authors, customer loyalty consultants themselves, disprove some of the most fervently held beliefs about loyalty such as an increase in customer retention of 5% leading to an increase in profits of up to 100%, how it costs 5x as much to acquire a new customer as it does to retain one, long-term customers being more valuable than short-term ones, etc. The authors show how and where these beliefs go wrong and how to correct where possible. At the end of the book, they present 7 loyalty truths that organizations can use to implement better loyalty initiatives. This is a highly valuable book both for those looking to implement loyalty efforts as well as those evaluating existing efforts. I highly recommend it.