Customer Satisfaction and Loyalty
In the context of your travel practice, what does the term “customer loyalty” mean? Does it mean that your customers always travel with you? Does it mean that they always come to you instead of booking online or with a supplier direct or instead of booking with another agency? Are these acts in themselves examples of customer loyalty or are these the result of customer loyalty?
Let me suggest the latter. Let me suggest that we might have the whole thing backwards. Perhaps the concept of customer loyalty has more to do with the travel consultant’s attitude toward the customer than the customer’s attitude toward the travel consultant. In other words, to have great “customer loyalty” we have to be loyal to our customers. Customer loyalty flows from the travel consultant to the client, not the other way around. It’s manifested in your communications with the client, in your empathy for their needs, in your client-centric approach to obtaining the best possible travel experience for them. |
Aren’t all the things we normally think of as loyalty, such as repeat business, the direct result of our treatment of our customers? Simply put, doesn’t customer loyalty begin with the travel consultant? Isn’t it the result of the relationship that we form with the client? Don’t we first have to be loyal to the client?
Here’s the thing – customer loyalty means we have to be loyal to the customer long before they do business with us. We have to take the lead in forming a relationship. The travel consultant is responsible for training the client, for educating the client and for moving the client out of a transactional relationship to one of long-term relationship. The client is a free-agent. If you as a travel consultant are not loyal to the customer – continually returning to relationship building, why would a customer demonstrate any loyalty?
Note that this process could go on for a very long time before the client ever books a trip through you.
What if you took the lead in loyalty formation? Building relationships, going the extra mile, placing the client at the center of the equation?
Think about the brands and companies to which you are the most loyal. Certainly it all begins with a great product or service. But, and here’s the secret, what is it about the product or service that makes it “great”? Does it seem the company has a special insight into your needs? Do they “get you” better than their competitors? Do they have an intuitive knowledge of the way you work and play? Do they pay attention when you have something to say?
Loyalty flows from the travel consultant to the client long before it will be returned. Loyal clients are more profitable than those who are not, more easily accessed, more likely to grant testimonials and referrals. You want as many of those as you can acquire.
But the first move is yours.
Loyalty Arises from Relationships
Carnival Cruise Lines did a study several years ago indicating 80% of cruisers booked their second cruise with someone other than the travel professional with whom they booked their first. However, the clients must have been satisfied with the cruise experience, because they took a second cruise.
So how to explain this rather startling statistic?
Our study of loyalty first necessitates grasping a very simple concept: even a satisfied client will go elsewhere when an opportunity arises that the client perceives as objectively better than the one you offer. A loyal client, however, will not.
The clients who booked their second cruise elsewhere were not necessarily dissatisfied, they simply were not loyal. The temptation, however, is to lay the blame for the lack of loyalty at the feet of the client. Many clients care about nothing except for price, some travel professionals will tell you.
It’s important to understand why this is a wrong understanding of the concept of client loyalty. Customer loyalty is not about satisfaction, and it’s not about price. Customer loyalty is about an emotional connection with a business. Moreover, loyalty is initiated by the business, not by the client.
Satisfied customers will be with your business until a better alternative shows up. It may be price, it may be simply a spur of the moment decision. A loyal customer, however, will stay with you, ask for your assistance, and give you an opportunity to retain their business. Satisfied customers have no commitment to your business. Loyal customers feel the bonds and tug of a relationship. Satisfaction is objective – did you meet expectations. Loyalty, however, is emotional, subjective.
The loyal customer perceives you as an adviser in the travel planning exercise while the satisfied customer views you as one of the possible retail outlets from which they can obtain a cruise.
Our job is to go way beyond satisfaction to loyalty.
Engendering Loyalty
Here’s the thing – customer loyalty means we have to be loyal to the customer long before they do business with us. We have to take the lead in forming a relationship. The travel consultant is responsible for training the client, for educating the client and for moving the client out of a transactional relationship to one of long-term relationship. The client is a free-agent. If you as a travel consultant are not loyal to the customer – continually returning to relationship building, why would a customer demonstrate any loyalty?
Note that this process could go on for a very long time before the client ever books a trip through you.
What if you took the lead in loyalty formation? Building relationships, going the extra mile, placing the client at the center of the equation?
Think about the brands and companies to which you are the most loyal. Certainly it all begins with a great product or service. But, and here’s the secret, what is it about the product or service that makes it “great”? Does it seem the company has a special insight into your needs? Do they “get you” better than their competitors? Do they have an intuitive knowledge of the way you work and play? Do they pay attention when you have something to say?
Loyalty flows from the travel consultant to the client long before it will be returned. Loyal clients are more profitable than those who are not, more easily accessed, more likely to grant testimonials and referrals. You want as many of those as you can acquire.
But the first move is yours.
Loyalty Arises from Relationships
Carnival Cruise Lines did a study several years ago indicating 80% of cruisers booked their second cruise with someone other than the travel professional with whom they booked their first. However, the clients must have been satisfied with the cruise experience, because they took a second cruise.
So how to explain this rather startling statistic?
Our study of loyalty first necessitates grasping a very simple concept: even a satisfied client will go elsewhere when an opportunity arises that the client perceives as objectively better than the one you offer. A loyal client, however, will not.
The clients who booked their second cruise elsewhere were not necessarily dissatisfied, they simply were not loyal. The temptation, however, is to lay the blame for the lack of loyalty at the feet of the client. Many clients care about nothing except for price, some travel professionals will tell you.
It’s important to understand why this is a wrong understanding of the concept of client loyalty. Customer loyalty is not about satisfaction, and it’s not about price. Customer loyalty is about an emotional connection with a business. Moreover, loyalty is initiated by the business, not by the client.
Satisfied customers will be with your business until a better alternative shows up. It may be price, it may be simply a spur of the moment decision. A loyal customer, however, will stay with you, ask for your assistance, and give you an opportunity to retain their business. Satisfied customers have no commitment to your business. Loyal customers feel the bonds and tug of a relationship. Satisfaction is objective – did you meet expectations. Loyalty, however, is emotional, subjective.
The loyal customer perceives you as an adviser in the travel planning exercise while the satisfied customer views you as one of the possible retail outlets from which they can obtain a cruise.
Our job is to go way beyond satisfaction to loyalty.
Engendering Loyalty
When economic times get tough, it is your existing client to which you can most easily and cost effectively turn for support. It is commonly known and accepted that it is much more expensive to acquire a new client than to retain an existing one. Existing clients represent the stability of your travel planning business. If your clients are not traveling with you on a repeat basis, chances are you are doing something very wrong.
Most conventional marketing resources will tell you that client retention is a matter of great customer service. I agree, but would add the qualifier “client-centric” to customer service. When you engage in client-centric customer service, the client comes first. The rationale for your action is for the benefit of the client’s experience, not merely for you to retain the client. |
While the difference seems slight, the psychological shift it represents is significant and will communicate itself to your clients. That fine distinction is very important to you. It makes you authentic. It will make you a star. Act on behalf of your clients. Claim ownership of their travel experiences from their perspective. Treat them as you would want to be treated if you were a client. The results will show.
Client retention is all about the relationships you form. The odds are very good that during the course of the year, your client will be approached by a travel opportunity that originates from somewhere other than your offices. It may come from a television ad, from the internet, from TravelZoo or from another travel agent. Your client is exposed to all type of “retail” travel environments. That is a good thing! Those marketing efforts, paid by others, motivate your clients. Your ability to retain the loyalty of the client regardless of the origin of their motivation to travel will directly depend on the strength of the relationship you have established over the course of your engagement with the client. You want your relationship with the client to be so strong that the client will bring the new travel opportunity to you for evaluation because you are “their” travel consultant. That sense of ownership only arises when the client feels that you have their interests first and foremost at heart and that your historical performance has been one of high quality and standards.
Here, again, are a few of the most important items that go into a solid client retention program.
In the quest to obtain new clients for your travel agency, don’t allow your existing clients to drift away from you. Hang on to your existing clients with a ferocity.
If you don’t somebody else will.
What are your travel agency clients saying about you? Ask them.
Client retention is all about the relationships you form. The odds are very good that during the course of the year, your client will be approached by a travel opportunity that originates from somewhere other than your offices. It may come from a television ad, from the internet, from TravelZoo or from another travel agent. Your client is exposed to all type of “retail” travel environments. That is a good thing! Those marketing efforts, paid by others, motivate your clients. Your ability to retain the loyalty of the client regardless of the origin of their motivation to travel will directly depend on the strength of the relationship you have established over the course of your engagement with the client. You want your relationship with the client to be so strong that the client will bring the new travel opportunity to you for evaluation because you are “their” travel consultant. That sense of ownership only arises when the client feels that you have their interests first and foremost at heart and that your historical performance has been one of high quality and standards.
Here, again, are a few of the most important items that go into a solid client retention program.
- Do insanely great work. Go the extra mile. Impress your client. Ask yourself “What have I done for this client that will WOW him?” If you cannot answer that question, neither can the client.
- Use a CRM program and track client birthdays, anniversaries and other important dates. Send greetings when appropriate and be in touch.
- Be relevant. Make your communications relevant to the client. If they don’t like to cruise, don’t send them information on cruises.
- Know their 10 year travel ambitions and help them work on achieving their goals. Know who your client is and know what their preferences are.
- Have visible quality control systems. Solicit feedback. Anticipate problem areas.
- Empower clients by training them and demystifying travel. Help them to be worldly and educated in their travels.
In the quest to obtain new clients for your travel agency, don’t allow your existing clients to drift away from you. Hang on to your existing clients with a ferocity.
If you don’t somebody else will.
What are your travel agency clients saying about you? Ask them.
People talk. Sometimes, they talk about you and your travel practice. Sometimes they say really nice things about your skill, the last trip they booked with you, and the wonderful experiences they had.
Every now and then, someone might say something not so nice. When that happens, your brand is damaged. You probably know your brand is not what you say it is: your brand is what others say it is. However, it is possible for you to influence the public perception of your brand and to raise the positive profile that others have of your travel practice. In the event of a problem, it is possible to effect damage control and to take possession of the course of conversation. But none of this is possible if you are not closely monitoring your brand image. |
How well do you know what your clients are saying about you and your travel practice? Every business should have in place an effort to obtain both direct and indirect feedback from their customers, but it is particularly important in a one-on-one service business like travel consulting. Your existing clients are one of your most important sources of new business as they refer others to you and act as evangelists for your agency. Continually improving your services based on customer feedback is one of the most important aspects of ground-level marketing. If you fail to monitor your client’s utterances in a variety of platforms, you may not be hearing some very important gossip – about you.
Client surveys, properly timed and of appropriate length, can be useful. However, too often these appear more as intrusions and one-sided requests for assistance. A survey placed immediately after a trip is a good tactic, and a well-conceived survey can tell you a great deal about a particular trip. However, a customer survey that comes out of the blue, not in the context of a travel planning exercise, might be viewed as unwelcome. In general, to truly get to the heart of client perceptions of your travel agency as a whole, you need to delve deeper than the typical satisfaction survey.
Depending on the size of your agency, you may find a rich store of information about customer satisfaction with your services online. A quick Google search on your company name is an important activity at least once a month. Better yet, Google Alerts can deliver that same information to your doorstep. But Google is not the only vehicle for monitoring your online reputation. Following your clients on Twitter and Facebook is an excellent way of not only maintaining your relationships but of also getting an inside look at how your clients feel about any number of consumer oriented services – including your own.
But the very best way to learn how clients feel about your services is to ask. Taking clients to breakfast or lunch is a time-honored way to delve into their perceptions of your business. Many business people make a client lunch a regular appointment each week, rotating through their client list to determine what clients love about their services, as well as what disappoints them or what needs to be improved. This is a particularly important exercise for senior management who may often delegate client relationships and account management to others.
Larger agencies will sometimes create a customer advisory board to provide feedback. This is a very strong indicator to clients of your willingness to listen to feedback and evidence that you value their opinions. However, customer advisory boards need to be of a relatively limited duration and need to rotate through willing clients frequently. Participants will typically anticipate some form of compensation as well… usually in the form of a dinner at meetings.
When you receive positive feedback from your comment harvesting, ask for permission to use the comments in testimonials. When you receive negative comments, you have a brilliant opportunity to salvage the situation. Promise immediate action and follow-up. Write a note after the meeting thanking the client for the constructive criticism and tell them what actions are being taken. Follow up within a couple of weeks to let the client know how the remediation has progressed.
Clients are going to talk about you. An internal program designed to harvest and act on that feedback gives you a chance to modify and participate in the conversation.
Client surveys, properly timed and of appropriate length, can be useful. However, too often these appear more as intrusions and one-sided requests for assistance. A survey placed immediately after a trip is a good tactic, and a well-conceived survey can tell you a great deal about a particular trip. However, a customer survey that comes out of the blue, not in the context of a travel planning exercise, might be viewed as unwelcome. In general, to truly get to the heart of client perceptions of your travel agency as a whole, you need to delve deeper than the typical satisfaction survey.
Depending on the size of your agency, you may find a rich store of information about customer satisfaction with your services online. A quick Google search on your company name is an important activity at least once a month. Better yet, Google Alerts can deliver that same information to your doorstep. But Google is not the only vehicle for monitoring your online reputation. Following your clients on Twitter and Facebook is an excellent way of not only maintaining your relationships but of also getting an inside look at how your clients feel about any number of consumer oriented services – including your own.
But the very best way to learn how clients feel about your services is to ask. Taking clients to breakfast or lunch is a time-honored way to delve into their perceptions of your business. Many business people make a client lunch a regular appointment each week, rotating through their client list to determine what clients love about their services, as well as what disappoints them or what needs to be improved. This is a particularly important exercise for senior management who may often delegate client relationships and account management to others.
Larger agencies will sometimes create a customer advisory board to provide feedback. This is a very strong indicator to clients of your willingness to listen to feedback and evidence that you value their opinions. However, customer advisory boards need to be of a relatively limited duration and need to rotate through willing clients frequently. Participants will typically anticipate some form of compensation as well… usually in the form of a dinner at meetings.
When you receive positive feedback from your comment harvesting, ask for permission to use the comments in testimonials. When you receive negative comments, you have a brilliant opportunity to salvage the situation. Promise immediate action and follow-up. Write a note after the meeting thanking the client for the constructive criticism and tell them what actions are being taken. Follow up within a couple of weeks to let the client know how the remediation has progressed.
Clients are going to talk about you. An internal program designed to harvest and act on that feedback gives you a chance to modify and participate in the conversation.
Exercise:
Implement a program of soliciting client feedback and suggestions. Use the Client Satisfaction Survey below to fashion a survey for your agency. Set up a Google Alerts for both you personally and for your agency, and scan services such as YELP! for any mention of your company and it's brand.
Implement a program of soliciting client feedback and suggestions. Use the Client Satisfaction Survey below to fashion a survey for your agency. Set up a Google Alerts for both you personally and for your agency, and scan services such as YELP! for any mention of your company and it's brand.