Customer Loyalty Is Continuous Value Creation

You win a new client when you create new value for them. You help them solve some existing problem, creating more value around some particular challenge. Or you create new value by helping your dream client move to a better future state even though things may be okay when you find them.

But if that’s the only value you create, you leave yourself susceptible to complacency and to a competitive displacement when one of your competitors finds a way to create new value.

Execution is certainly part of a customer loyalty and client retention strategy.

But the real key to customer loyalty and client retention is to continually and continuously find new ways to create value. You put a ton of effort into trying to find new ways to create value for your dream clients when they are still prospects. To generate customer loyalty and lifetime clients you have to put as much effort into creating new value for your clients after you’ve won their business, after you’ve had their business for some time.

You generate loyalty when you act as if you’re part of your client management team, always finding the next idea, always driving the business forward, never allowing the status quo to take hold, and always pushing for change. This is what generates loyalty.

Loyalty is about helping a client continually move their business forward. That’s how you earn the loyalty. Long periods with little or no new value creation opens the door for your competitors to share their new ideas and make the case for change you should be making.