Personalized communication for customer loyalty

2 replies
Hello

I've been reading this forum for some time and this is my first post here. A brief introduction: I'm a personal development enthusiast who constantly seeks new information to create theories that can maximize our abilities to get ahead in life. I have to say this forum is full of great info! For some time I've been writing a couple of articles about communication skills, and here's something I've been working on.. Feel free to comment!

Personal is the new business

A former mentality of doing business has been a huge separation between personal and formal business relationships. Some still use the old saying “Don’t mix business and personal”, despite there's a modern variation: “Don’t mix 1900’s ideology with 2000’s customer expectations!” The transition in our approaches to business relationships is clear: we want to deal with people, not businesses. Personalized communication has become a must in almost all relationships -- both business and personal.

Then, what is causing the change in communication preferences? The rise of social media is one, but certainly not the only reason that brings people-oriented thinking into businesses. The actual reason why business relationships are changing is the need for customer loyalty.

Customer loyalty has always been important, but companies haven’t begun to fully understand its centric role until in the 21st century. Corporations like Apple, GE, Southwest Airlines and Toyota that have shown extraordinary examples how creating customer loyalty becomes a foundation of corporate success.

The reason for bringing business and personal relationships closer to another is obvious; long-term customer relationships are only formed through customer-oriented business approaches. Well maintained customer relationships create customer loyalty, which is a huge advantage for any company. Similarly, the loyalty of business partners is a long-term advantage.

People-focused communication has a role in different company functions. For example, customer service, marketing, the word-to-mouth advertising and maintaining business-to-business relationships, just to name a few, are all functions that can benefit from increased loyalty that comes with personalized communication.
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What do you think? Is there an increasing need for personalized communication?
#communication #customer #loyalty #personalized
  • Profile picture of the author Rory Singh
    Very well said and beautifully put together Mark.

    We can't stress enough on this topic. I personally believe there is a need for companies to start implementing this strategy. I see so much of care-less-ness when it comes to companies and the way they go about doing their business such as if customers are in need of "them" as supposed to the other way around or a mentality "including both"

    Nowadays, seems anyone can go out and start a business without any training on this subject, they hire folks who have no training and so the problems arise from the top.

    Quoting You below, you mentioned some model companies that most companies can learn from. I totally agree on this.

    [Customer loyalty has always been important, but companies haven’t begun to fully understand its centric role until in the 21st century. Corporations like Apple, GE, Southwest Airlines and Toyota that have shown extraordinary examples how creating customer loyalty becomes a foundation of corporate success.]

    Thanks for sharing your thoughts on this! Great Info.
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    • Profile picture of the author MarkZetter
      Yes, agreed. I think more and more companies are adapting into this. Obviously the challenge is: how to focus on customers individually. A personal approach would provide opportunities for a clever IMer too

      Just found this article, basic but pretty good points about personalization in the web
      http://www.sitepoint.com/the-5-golde...ommunications/
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