Remove Your Customer Hurdles, Increase Loyalty and ROI.

Remove Your Customer Hurdles

Tap, Swipe, Click…  Today’s consumers act and react within seconds, driven by enabling technologies like smartphones and hyper-dynamic social channels. The consumer actively engages in search, dialogue and purchase whenever and wherever they decide to do it. Brands with the fewest hurdles dramatically increase their chances for marketing and loyalty success.

The last statement may seem obvious, but then why do so many brands still erect hurdles that impede or prevent their customers from following through on their desired actions?

Some reasons why brands have customer hurdles:

• They think like marketers, not consumers
• Their organizations are siloed (don’t work together on customer centricity)
• Limited budgets and under-staffed departments
• Support agencies that are not doing their job (claim to be experts, but aren’t)
• The user experience is not tested and optimized
• A customer feedback loop is not present and/or highly valued

Every hurdle incrementally diminishes a marketer’s ability to succeed – no matter what the initiative.

Some customer hurdles I encountered this past week:

• Hotel – They did not auto-fill my member number in the Web form for their promotion, Result: I passed on the promotion, I don’t have my member number memorized.
• Restaurant – No mobile Web page for ordering; I can’t read (.25) font on my iPhone, Result: I ordered from another restaurant with a mobile site.
• Restaurant –  Welcome email, with marketing speak (“Thanks, you’ve been added to our database, stay tuned.”), Result: I have less interest in dining there soon.
• Retailer –  Email promotion link did not take me to the proper landing page, Result: I passed on the promotion – I don’t have time to search their Website.
• Most Retail – Make you hunt for the”Find a Store” link on their Website, Result: Aggravation – most of us shop predominantly in-store, help us find your store quickly.

Most brands do not need a dramatic change in customer behavior to achieve their goals – they simply need incremental customer engagement and spend.  In a Tap, Swipe, Click, time-starved world, even small hurdles prevent incremental behavior.

Take a good hard look at your current marketing initiatives and points of customer engagement – find those hurdles and remove them.  The incremental customer behavior and loyalty you seek may be easier and less costly to achieve than you first envisioned.

Related articles

• Customer Loyalty Ain’t What It Used to Be. (customerthink.com)
• Can’t Buy Me Love: Emotion Trumps Monetary Reward When it Comes to Customer Loyalty (customerthink.com)
• http://www.mobilecommercedaily.com/walmart-cements-mcommerce-reign-with-interactive-advertising-campaign

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