What do you do to retain customer loyalty? In today’s world, where there’s always a cheaper place to buy something, or a cheaper version of what you’re selling, it can be really difficult to create any connection with customers. But, as anyone in sales and marketing knows, its more efficient and costs less to keep customers than to find new ones. Building relationships with customers (ie, exceeding their expectations) is an important and often lost art in business.

How do you do that? Well, certainly there are differences in every business, but I think one of the best ways to do it is to exceed expectations in unexpected, memorable ways. Many of these involve encouraging your staff to take that extra step for the customer by empowering them to do things without endless manager approval.
Yesterday, I had a few experiences like this. I went skiing at my favorite mountain, Copper. It’s my favorite for a number of reasons, one of which is this kind of service. So, what do they do? Well, for one thing, they have free parking lots with endlessly running shuttles that take you — for free — to the mountain. They have 3 different shuttles that go to the 3 different mountain bases, so it takes all of 5-10 minutes from when you parked to getting on a chairlift. Which, considering how much lift tickets are, is really nice. At Vail, where ticket prices are outrageous, there’s no free parking, and you have to take an endless walk in your ski gear to get to the mountain. For a day skier, its a crappy way to start and end your day.
Yesterday on the shuttle at Copper, the driver offered discount coupons on rental gear for anyone who might need it. A nice little extra unexpected touch. Then, when I was leaving, the parking lot attendants were washing everyone’s windshields. Why, I asked? Just because. The dude who washed my windshield said the reason they liked working at Copper was because of what they called “The Bro Factor,” the laid back attitude of the company. The Bro Factor is, what seems to me, the authentic approach to customer relationships that Copper takes to develop loyalty from its local customers.
More Bro Factor: Christy’s, where I rent my son’s snowboard gear. He was supposed to go to the mountain with me, but being a teenager, got a better offer that involved hanging out with friends. So, he didn’t use his rental equipment. When I returned it to the store last night and told them he hadn’t used it, the staff person gave me a coupon for a free rental. The reason the equipment wasn’t used had nothing to do with Christy’s, but this staff person felt empowered to do something unexpected. Now Christy’s is just one of a dozen ski rental shops in town, but I go there because of their customer service and because they rent better equipment.

So what’s your Bro Factor?