The Customer Manifesto: How Business Has Failed Customers & What It Takes to Earn Loyalty

A breakthrough in how businesses connect with their customers to create an exceptional experience, every time. The most interesting thing about the way the Internet is shaping business growth today is being driven by consumer behavior online, and the vast majority of the conversation is how the business made the customer feel. The great divide: 80% of businesses believe they are providing 'superior' customer service, yet only 8% of their customers agree. Breaking through in a sea of sameness begins by returning to old school connectedness with your customers. As a successful entrepreneur, inventor, educator, and consult-ant, I've helped thousands of small business owners grow their profits by identifying the broken links in their work flow, creating an exceptional customer experience, and increasing their traffic. The old adage, "Nothing personal, it's just business," couldn't be farther from the truth in today's economy. Business is personal. Leveraging social proof, both through word of mouth marketing and online, begins when a business has developed lasting loyalty with their customers. Lasting loyalty happens when we feel a strong feeling of support or allegiance to someone. This book summarizes for a general audience results from a query put to customers, "What would a business have to do in order to earn your loyalty?" The Customer Manifesto is the result of that query. By understanding what customers want to feel when they transact with a business, we can quickly adapt the way in which we interact with them with the goal of growing the rela-tionship to the level of evangelist -- someone who will willingly and happily provide the critical social proof through business rat-ings and review websites, and through social networking. This book provides best practices from the highest rated busi-nesses in hospitality and the insights from enterprise level busi-nesses that have invested billions of dollars on customer insights in order to improve the way they do business. We've taken these principles and applied them to The Customer Manifesto so that lo-cal businesses can learn how to create an exceptional customer experience with every transaction. The stories and lessons are presented in the framework of the retail business, but these principles very much apply to the serv-ice based business where customers may be calling you, or an on-line business where you are measuring & monitoring the customer experience through the lens of your website analytics. Technology is an amazing tool for growing sales, but it is a waste of the two most valuable resources a small business has -- that of time and money -- if the customer experience is fair to middling. An exceptional experience is created when we prove to customers that they are valued and appreciated with every action, interaction, reaction & transaction.

Pamela Herrmann is the best selling author of Breaking Through. Her message has helped thousands of people and organizations grow their sales by understanding the connection between core values, relationship marketing and New Media marketing. With over 25 years as an inventor and entrepreneur, she is dedicated to the idea that business is personal and educates companies around the country on ＂The Customer Manifesto -- How To Build Brand Loyalty Through an Exceptional Customer Experience.＂ Her website, www.ReachAcrossTheRegister.com, educates small business owners on how to bring best practices on creating an exceptional customer experience from enterprise level companies to the local level.