Share Your Skies With Us

As the author of this great post notes, it is far cheaper to keep a customer loyal than to find a new customer. There is a powerful reminder to us that you "work" two neural strategies in your marketing - one that addresses reason, and one that addresses emotion. The emotion side is invariably more effective, but also lends itself to more work. Two "shortcuts" to success - reward your customers and share your values.  I, personally, think the values side of the equation is too often shortshrifted, but assert again - your values are your brand. Clarifying them will enhance business performance!

Emotions rule the customer experience, and negative ones - sadness, fear, disappointment, anger, anxiety - are bound to trip up the customer journey, compromising transaction likelihood and/or customer loyalty.  It is critical today that customer experiences be documented (through customer journey mapping) and validated for their emotional "tenor".  This article, from Forrester, points out that it is less about delight and wow, and a whole lot more about eliminating the negative emotion set from the customer journey.

This brief synopsis of a longer article shares that some businesses are coming to realize the competitive hiring and retention benefits of providing free online university-level education to their employees.  I guess we can only hope that the e-learning quality is worthy of the effort!