A couple of years ago my daughter was born to a set of excited and quite bewildered parents. The first night at home was the hardest. We swaddled, shushed, and swayed ourselves into total exhaustion as we tried to figure out how to calm our new arrival.
After some weeks of trial and error we eventually arrived at a set of five failure points that need to be managed in the normal care of a healthy baby:
I call this concept “Feeding the Meter”. If you know the meter has 2 hours on it before it gets hungry, go back in 110 minutes to avoid missing the deadline and the risk of a meltdown (ticket). In a similar manner, understanding the limits of your customer’s patience and “feeding their meters” with special communications, offers, and promotions can be critical to successfully cultivating customer loyalty.
For example, many subscription and membership businesses expect a certain % of customer attrition just before membership fees are due. Companies that connect with their customers just before the renewal period with messages that reinforce the value proposition and offer loyalty based incentives can effectively minimize this failure point.
Lets see how this works with a market leader in customer engagement: Facebook. At 750 million active users, Facebook is accumulating customers faster than perhaps any company on record. Their success lies in part because of the site’s simple and intuitive user interface, constant media attention, and the viral nature of social networks. But Facebook also applies techniques to engage new or dormant users to accelerate usage and move from trial to loyalty.
Here are 4 potential Facebook failure points and how they use timely and communications and user incentives to “feed the meter” at critical times when loyalty is made or broken:
Facebook’s approach is even more successful because they recruit your own network to encourage you. This is a powerful application of the net promoter that results in engaged and loyal customers.
By understanding the critical points in the life cycle a customer has with your product, you can anticipate and avoid failure points that create customer dissatisfaction and attrition. A simple example of this could look like this:
Cycle Stage: Engagement Focus:
New Customer Welcome and Educate
Repurchase Remind / reinforce value proposition
Renew Usage Excite & Engage
Loyal Customer Recognize & Reward
So rethink your customers and meet their needs when and how they experience them. By doing so, you can eliminate the potential pain points that strain loyalty and drive customer attrition.
After some weeks of trial and error we eventually arrived at a set of five failure points that need to be managed in the normal care of a healthy baby:
1. Hungry / Thirsty
2. Sleepy
3. Too Hot / Cold
4. Dirty Diaper
5. Other
#5 is the unknown and what most parents worry about. The first 4 elements, however, are quite simple to understand and manage. Most parents quickly learn their child’s cycle times for feeding, sleeping and changes and begin to plan accordingly. By scheduling around nap times and keeping snacks on hand, moms and dads actually preempt a failure from occurring in these requirements in order to avoid the consequential meltdown it creates.
For example, many subscription and membership businesses expect a certain % of customer attrition just before membership fees are due. Companies that connect with their customers just before the renewal period with messages that reinforce the value proposition and offer loyalty based incentives can effectively minimize this failure point.
Lets see how this works with a market leader in customer engagement: Facebook. At 750 million active users, Facebook is accumulating customers faster than perhaps any company on record. Their success lies in part because of the site’s simple and intuitive user interface, constant media attention, and the viral nature of social networks. But Facebook also applies techniques to engage new or dormant users to accelerate usage and move from trial to loyalty.
Here are 4 potential Facebook failure points and how they use timely and communications and user incentives to “feed the meter” at critical times when loyalty is made or broken:
By understanding the critical points in the life cycle a customer has with your product, you can anticipate and avoid failure points that create customer dissatisfaction and attrition. A simple example of this could look like this:
Cycle Stage: Engagement Focus:
New Customer Welcome and Educate
Repurchase Remind / reinforce value proposition
Renew Usage Excite & Engage
Loyal Customer Recognize & Reward
So rethink your customers and meet their needs when and how they experience them. By doing so, you can eliminate the potential pain points that strain loyalty and drive customer attrition.
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