Customer support is not your loyalty emergency room

Last week we ordered takeout food. When we started to plate it at home, we found my kiddo's container was less than half full and there was an entire missing side.

That prompted a call and a complaint which ended up with a free meal for her next time.

We'll still order from that restaurant, but this isn't the first time that there was an order mistake. In fact, on this order her meal was already comped due to a mistake on the prior order.

What was our go-to restaurant for years is now giving up pause. We hesitate and ask ourselves: "Do we want the hassle of dealing with order screw-ups?"

Our loyalty with them has slipped and is getting to the point of going elsewhere (defection).

Their saving grace is good customer service about the mistakes. That's them reacting to the problems and we're already put out.

A more proactive option is to make sure every order has the chance to delight a customer. Especially long-term customers who are in the company's loyalty program.

Proactive could mean better checks for defects and mistakes. It could mean a little something extra thrown in. There's a wide array of options at that stage.

Every business has the data to know how to treat loyal customers. Many just ignore it and react to the complaints after customer loyalty takes the hit. Assuming the customer even complains and doesn't just walk away from the business.

No wonder why customers don't have as much "brand loyalty" these days.

For Shopify stores, much of the raw loyalty data is collected already for you. It's just not analyzed or explained well so it just sits there. You probably have piles of improvements and options to make your customer loyalty better without knowing it.

That's why Repeat Customer Insights pulls in that data and uses proven models to extract advice out of the raw data. Data and measurement alone aren't worthwhile. You need advice and action to actually make a change.

By the time a loyal customer is complaining to customer service, they're on their way out.

Eric Davis

How do your products determine customer behavior

In Repeat Customer Insights the Customer First Product analysis will measure customer behavior based on the products each customer first ordered.

Learn more

Topics: Customer loyalty Customer retention

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