Customer Inertia Is Not Customer Loyalty

Does your customer really want to do business with you?

 An audience member came up to me after one of my speaking programs and made a very smart comment. She said, “Don’t confuse customer inertia with customer loyalty.”

I wasn’t sure what she meant by customer inertia. She explained that in her industry it is sometimes easier for customers to put up with a mediocre vendor rather than go to the difficulty of switching to another. Customers just tend to put up with poor service and results, as long as it doesn’t get too bad. They just keep “rolling” along. That’s the inertia she was talking about.

Yet in most businesses it is easy to switch to a new vendor/supplier. The customer just disappears. No complaints. Just one day someone notices (or not) that a customer isn’t doing business with them anymore. The customer may have left for a number of reasons from competitive issues, such as pricing, to customer service issues, such as indifference.

You don’t want customers to stay with you just because it is easier. You want them to stay because they want to. Because you are that good!

Shep Hyken is a customer service expert, professional speaker and New York Times bestselling business author. For information contact (314) 692-2200 or www.hyken.com. For information on The  Customer  Focus™ customer service training programs go to http://www.thecustomerfocus.com. Follow on Twitter: @Hyken
(Copyright ©MMXII, Shep Hyken)