Loyalty Myths Hardcover - 2005 - 1st Edition

First line

No industry provides a better example of the misconception of customer loyalty as a pervasive corporate goal than the banking industry.

From the jacket flap

It's time to tear down the false idols of customer loyalty!

CEOs worldwide cite customer loyalty as their most important strategic objective, spending billions of dollars to hold onto their customers. Thousands of books and even more articles have been written about customer loyalty and everyone agrees it's vital. But are they right?

In Loyalty Myths, renowned authors from one of the world's premier business research firms reveal the ugly truth about customer loyalty--almost everything you've been told about it is wrong!

In fact, most popular loyalty maxims are based on faulty data or on a faulty reading of good data. For instance, most managers take it as gospel that all customers become more valuable over time. But it's not true! Some do just the opposite; they cost the company money over time. A CEO who keeps the wrong customers can lose millions! But business leaders do it every day because they fail to fully understand customer loyalty.

To set things straight, Loyalty Myths critiques 53 of the most common beliefs about customer loyalty and debunks them fully with hard science and even harder data. Using real-world examples and the latest facts and figures, the authors smash the platitudes and the easy assumptions about customer loyalty and offer real-world, fact-based methodologies that really do keep customers coming back.

But how do you know the authors are right? Granted unprecedented access to customer records from a wide variety of multinational corporations, they were able to track the impact of customer loyalty initiatives on actual purchasing. Their findings will force you to set aside the simple half-truths you thought would work and show you how to leverage your customer loyalty for maximum profit.

Customer loyalty is an important factor in the success of any business, but by oversimplifying it many businesses have failed to realize its full power and effectiveness. For any business leader who wants to truly understand customer loyalty--and get real results from customer loyalty programs--this book finally speaks the truth.

Media reviews

Citations

• Harvard Business Review, 10/01/2005, Page 28