Be Loyal to Your Customers

I recently read an excellent article by a gentleman that I’ve always admired and respected. His
name is Mark Vittert and he writes a column called Reflections in the “St. Louis Business
Journal.” I receive the “Journal” every week and the first thing I do is turn to his column on
the third to last page. He has been writing this column for at least twenty plus years and each
week he shares an interesting article, a bit of trivia, a little fun—and many times a valuable
lesson.

Such was the case this week when he wrote about Irv Roselman, an insurance sales person
for Lincoln Life. In short, Mark’s father bought a small policy from Irv almost 50 years ago.
Since that time he didn’t make another sale to the Vittert family. Yet during all of this time,
Irv stayed in touch, first with Mark’s father, then with Mark. Every year Mark would receive
a card on his birthday. And sometimes Irv would write a nice note when he heard something
nice worth passing on.

This is quite amazing. Even after almost 50 years of not selling to this customer, Irv stayed in
touch. Mark Vittert writes that Irv, at age 74 can look back on his worthy mission and enjoy
the enormous positive impact he has had on thousands of people.

While Mark’s article about Irv is inspirational, there is also a great business lesson here. The
first obvious lesson is one about keeping in touch with your customers. Keeping in touch
with customers through holiday and birthday cards doesn’t guarantee more business, but it
works for a percentage of your customers. Just staying in touch with prospects and
customers helps to keep your name in front of the customer, and that can’t hurt. That’s
lesson one.

Here is lesson two. Irv has had a successful professional life. And, we should all take note of
one of his simple, but powerful, strategy of keeping in touch. You see, Irv remained loyal to
his customers. It didn’t matter if people bought another policy from him or not, he continued
to send cards and notes. So many times we look for our customers to be loyal to us. We
want them to buy again and again. We try all kinds of fancy marketing, advertising and sales
programs and hope that they will come back or continue to work with us. Let’s sum this up
in one sentence:

If you want your customers to be loyal to you, you must first be loyal to your customers.
— Shep Hyken, CSP