Well, why not? After all, I was quite satisfied with my purchase. First, because I’m cheap. For clothes, I almost always buy only when the item I’m looking for is on sale. Second, Macy’s is a bit out of the way for me – it’s about a 20 minute drive from me and parking is usually a b*tch. Third, and probably most important, I don’t really feel valued as a customer. I feel no personal connection to them.  They have done nothing to build a relationship with me over the years even though I’ve spent thousands dollars with them if you include mattress and furniture purchases on top of the personal clothing items and gifts.  To them, I’m just another faceless consumer – and to me, they are just a super mega corp that doesn’t particularly care how many customers they churn through.

So what could they have done to earn my loyalty? What could they have done to make me feel all warm and fuzzy?  For starters, they could have called or emailed me a week after my new mattress set was delivered to ask how I was sleeping on my comfy new bed. Or they could have sent me an offer to purchase some nice brand new sheets for my brand new bed (I ended up buying those at Bed Bath and Beyond). Or even more off the wall, they could have sent me a stuffed animal (a sheep maybe?) to keep me company in my new bed. Silly, yes – but definitely memorable. Think how many people I would have told about that! Think of all the good word of mouth it would have created – especially if I wrote a blog that people actually read! It would have cost them $5 on a $1500 purchase to go above and beyond to build a connection with a customer. Instead I got a random email the next week about their jewelry sale that was summarily deleted. (Hmmm…maybe they thought if I bought the jewelry for my wife I may have gotten more use out of the bed. Wink wink, nudge nudge. Nah, they’re not that crafty.)

On my recent clothing purchase, they could have emailed me a guide to mixing and matching shirts and ties with my suit, or other sartorial tips. Or they could have sent information on cleaning & caring for my suit – or even given me a list of local dry cleaners they recommend. I would probably refer to it in the future (keeping them top of mind) and might even click on embedded links to make a purchase down the road. Heck they could have thrown in a Macy’s-branded lint brush with purchase to keep me looking snazzy even after I sat down in a chair covered with cat hair. Might cost them a buck – but I’d think of them fondly every time I used it.

There are a ton of things they could do to build a relationship with me; many of them wouldn’t have cost them a cent. Email is virtually free.  With an effective loyalty program, they could track my purchases and send me highly targeted communications based on my purchase history and demographics.

Creating loyalty is not just about offering free stuff or discounts. It’s not always even just about the points. What you’re looking for is to create some sort of human connection with your customers – something that shows you’ve put some thought into them and their needs. If not, you’ll end up with many customers that are plenty “satisfied” but not loyal. And loyalty is golden. Loyalty keeps them coming back when you’re not having a sale. Loyalty allows you to draw them to you even though you’re not the closest store. Loyalty even allows you to mess up once in a while and yet they still keep coming back.

I may go back to Macy’s – but only if there is a sale. That puts me in the “coupon clipper” category. I’ll talk more about coupon clippers in a future post and how sometimes you may even be better off with those types not being a customer.

I’m [planning on] writing a book: The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Building a Customer Loyalty Program.  I will be posting snippets, excerpts, and half-baked ideas for the book over the coming months to this blog, in no particular order. No full chapters, though. You’ll have to wait until I publish the book to see those.  I welcome any questions or comments you may have on each post.

Thanks for stopping by!