National Clothesline

very business wants to know if the customers acquired through promotional activity will be loyal forever. And, as the economy creeps slowly back, drycleaners in particular need to give customers reasons to stay loyal.

For many years customer satisfaction was used to measure customer loyalty, but today, satisfaction alone isn’t good enough. Businesses are finding better ways to measure what keeps customers faithful.

In the past, the focus was on the quality of services provided by a drycleaner. The assumption was, if customers found no fault with your services (ready on time, well cleaned and well pressed), the customer would never look elsewhere. Today, things are a little different.

The following are the most important indicators of how truly loyal your customers are.

Intent to refer

A customers’ willingness to refer your services to others is one of the best measures of future customer loyalty.

Recommendations are powerful. Whenever you survey your customers, it’s important to ask them if they are satisfied with the services you offer and if they would recommend you to someone else. Asking that question will help you determine whether a customer is loyal and likely to remain so.

Furthermore, anyone who makes a referral usually becomes even more loyal because they have committed themselves to your business.

As you know, I’ve suggested referral programs in the past. But now, it’s more important than ever to have a workable program in place.

It’s also important to be straightforward with your customers and ask them candidly, why they are loyal, and how good a job they think you’re doing. I know this is difficult. No one wants to invite complaints. But it’s important to hear it from “the horse’s mouth.” Remember, it’s much less expensive to keep a customer than to find a new one.

Market penetration

Another good loyalty indicator is market penetration. When we perform a demographic analysis for a drycleaner, we tell them what the total available drycleaning volume is in their community. Based on this information, a cleaner immediately knows what share of his market he owns.

Many drycleaners mistakenly count the number of customers in their database as a means of measuring their market share. This doesn’t work because many customers are not loyal and frequent more than one cleaner. As much as we’d like to believe otherwise, few customers use only one drycleaner for everything.

Price sensitivity

Sometimes customers are inclined to switch cleaners because of price. This trend was accelerated by the recent economic downturn. However, focusing your services primarily on price can damage your reputation in the long run.

Many cleaners have created disloyalty because they focused just on price. Trying to create a distinction that is not based on price alone is important.

Almost daily, we hear from cleaners who want to increase their market share but are afraid to offer any kind of incentive for prospective customers to sample their services because they don’t want to be labeled a discount cleaner.

A true discounter has fixed low pieces that remain low to accommodate price-only customers. As in Wal-Mart’s “everyday low prices.”

An occasional inducement to encourage new prospects to see that your services are worth the price is a different animal. Here people know that they are being offered a chance to sample your quality at a reduced rate and when the promotion ends, they’ll have to pay your full price. Customers who are interested in price alone don’t even consider leaving their Wal-Mart cleaner, unless it’s for someone else with even lower everyday prices. They’re not interested in your quality. Price is the only language they speak.

Behavior patterns

A customer’s behavior pattern, such as the frequency of their visits, can be a crucial indicator of future customer loyalty. Drycleaners can use incentives or perks to encourage customers to increase the use of their services.

It’s something the major airlines do a good job of — offering perks for their premium customers such as, bonus miles with the use of certain credit cards and discounts at hotels and for rental cars. Drycleaners can do this by partnering with local beauty parlors, spas, restaurants, bakeries, etc. Offering incentives to use non-competing businesses makes it more attractive for customers to continue to use your services.

Don’t delay in using the above information to make your customers as loyal as possible.

Dennis McCrory is president of The Golomb Group Inc., a firm that designs marketing programs for drycleaners. Contact him at The Golomb Group Inc., 7664 Plaza Ct., Willowbrook, IL 60527 Tele: (800) 679-5856 E-mail: dennismccrory@golombgroup.com