The Lifebelt: The Definitive Guide to Managing Customer Retention - Hardcover

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Dr John A Murphy is Abbey National Visiting Professor in Service Quality at the Manchester Business School. Professor Murphy combines the roles of academic and international consultant specializing in service quality management and customer retention.

He has held a series of senior management positions both in Ireland and the UK. He is currently a non-executive director of Total Research, the London-based European operation of the International Strategic Market Research Company, headquartered in Princeton, New Jersey, USA.

At Manchester Business School, he has established a unique cohort of PhD scholarship students in conjunction with leading UK compaies. These students are specalizing in service quality / customer retention research with an emphasis on issues that have a practical relevace to industry. This is the largest doctoral research group in this specialist area in Europe. He is a contributor to the MBA Programme and directs the Best in Quality Case Study Conference Programme. He is a regular contributor to the Management and Executive Development programmes of the MBS Executive Centre.

He holes five professioal fellowships and is a member of the International Academy for Quality, whose members are chosen from the most active protagonists in quality in the world.

John Murphy is a Food Science graduate of University College, Cork and has a Master’s degree in Science from Trinity College, Dublin, and Doctor of Philosophy degree from the University of Ulster, Ireland.

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Most business depend on promotional gimmicks or special offers to retain customers, yet research provides compelling evidence that the most sustainable levels of customer loyalty and retention are achieved through consistency in service excellence delivery.

The Customer Service Integration Framework ― the Lifebelt ― introduced in this book is based on four years of research examining the key factors essential for consistent delivery of service. Whilst many organizations have some good practices in place, most appear to lack synchronization of endeavour.

The framework, which has been successfully applied in various industrial sectors, facilitates this essential synchronization and systemization.

Aus dem Klappentext

Most businesses depend on promotional gimmicks or special offers to retain customers, yet research provides compelling evidence that the most sustainable levels of customer loyalty and retention are achieved through consistency in service excellence delivery.
The Customer Service Integration Framework - the Lifebelt - introduced in this book is based on four years of research examining the key factors essential for consistent delivery of service. Whilst many organizations have some good practices in place, most appear to lack synchronization of endeavour.
The framework, which has been successfully applied in various industrial sectors, facilitates this essential synchronization and systemization.

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Introduction Things are changing for every living creature on this planet. Change is faster and more far-reaching than at any time in human history. In a world of change, some things are immutable. One such example is the pivotal role a customer plays in a business organization. Be it service provider or product manufacturer, a business organization survives in the pockets and on the goodwill of its customers. SINK OR SWIM? That is the question. For too many businesses, globalization and the euro apart, the past decade has been cataclysmic. Many once famous and respected companies have vanished without trace. Others are peering into the abyss. They ask themselves what has gone wrong. What can survivors do to keep themselves afloat? In the midst of change and uncertainty, what is the future for their business? The best way to predict the future is to invent it. To discover how, read on. The aim of this book is to throw a lifebelt to those organizations for which the water is rough and the future seems uncertain. It offers proven suggestions for clinging to customers as a drowning man clings to a lifebelt. It examines what it is about an organization's behaviour that makes customers desert, and why some organizations have customers who stick with them through thick and thin. It offers insight into how and why every employee must become involved in the retention efforts of the organization. WHY RETAIN CUSTOMERS? It takes time and money to attract every new customer. For the first year or two after acquisition, the money that new customers spend with the organization is offset against acquisition costs. After this, there is a gradually increasing profit to be made from them. In time, if they stay with the organization and develop an emotional bond with it, they will encourage others to become customers. These newcomers will not require an Expenditure of marketing resources to attract them. They will already conform to the specification of the best and most appropriate type of customer for the organization to service. If they, too develop an emotional attachment to the organization, they will also refer to others. They could be expected to bring a lifetime spending habit to the organization.

Can every potential customer be retained? Most organization find that it is best to acquire a segment of customers with some common features about what they require. In this way, it is easier to focus on provision of what is most likely to please. To make an accurate selection, it is necessary to understand what motivates customers to buy, and to identify those who will profitable to serve and retain. There are, however, other step to be taken before an organization is ready to implement a service culture. This defines the attitude required to attract and retain customers long term. If customers retention is to become the aim of the organization, some radical changes in key areas require to be made. Whatever segment of the customers an organization decides to favour, these changes will follow the same basic pattern, governed in detail only by customers preferences. The goal will be service quality excellence. WHAT HAPPENS IF THERE IS NO CHANGE TO A SERVICE CULTURE? The alternative to creating the service excellence culture, which guarantees that customers become and remain loyal, is failure. With the proper culture, success is possible. Failure is optional; but is that what any organization really wants? There are many examples of organization that chose failure. Their names are strewn, sadly across the past decade. Customer Retention Before any organization can undertake a radical change of strategy, motivation and direction have to come from the top echelon of management. These people decide where they want the organization to go and how they can support the changes. It will be costly to begin with, and shareholders have to agree to stand by what action management sees as necessary. Once the financial and moral support structure is in place, it is time to discuss what to do next. Reasons for Change To prove that the new strategy will be profitable, organizations need to understand not only what it costs to gain a customer but what it costs to lose one. If these factors are examined carefully, they reveal that some customers would never have been profitable, while others have all the qualifications to be so. The next step is to look for a pattern in customer behaviour, behaviour, to find out what type of customer is best served by the organization. Organizations look for reasons that will make their customers stay long-term. They compare those who stay with those who defect, and try to discover the reasons behind the actions of both. They also calculate how soon a customer who stays with the business pays back the investment and how much will be earned over a lifetime relationship. In theory, it sounds simple. In practice, it is a very wide field to explore. Study of Customers Once shareholders and the board of directors have been convinced about the strategy, attention should be focused on discovering the type of customer most likely to appreciate what the company has to offer. There is no point in pouring resources into satisfying customers who make one- time purchases, possibly on a whim. The customer who will make purchasing with the organization a habit is the one to consider. How do those customers want to be treated if they are to form a nucleus of emotionally loyal customers in the long term? How do they behave, and what makes them choose this organization rather than that one? The organization has to establish the answers early on. The best way to find out what people want and expect is to ask them. FINDING THE BEST CUSTOMERS FOR RETENTION The illustration for the theme of this book is a lifebelt. It illustrates how a modem business organization develops and synchronizes every element of itself with the one aim of selecting and pleasing its customers. People can...