It is one of the most important questions that organizations often ask themselves while introspecting their systems and processes in an effort to enhance the customers experience of interacting with them.

It is a very well known fact that only 4 out of 10 customers would come back and point out or complain about their unhappiness of doing business with an organization; the rest would simply shift their loyalty to some other organization. Therefore, the customer touch points in the customer service chain become very critical in deciding how well an organization is able to retain customer loyalty. This statistic becomes all the more important when one considers the fact that every single customer who has had a bad experience in dealing with a particular organization will share the same with approximately 8 or 9 other people who could be prospective customers of the same organization, whereas, when you compare the same word of mouth publicity with a person who has had a positive experience; the particular customer will share that with only 3 people. This clearly shows that the organization does need to make double the effort in order to gain the loyalty of its customers especially in the case of customer complaints.

Another relevant point of contention at this juncture is that organizations should realize that of all the customers who choose to shift their loyalties to an alternate organization to do business with; almost 10% of customers shift their loyalties because of competitive reasons. These competitive reasons might just not be related with simply the pricing factor. Value for money; in most cases; is the deciding factor for these customers to shift or retain their loyalties. Perception of a service or a product being value for money combined with a flawless customer service chain processes will help the organization to retain customer loyalty.

This also puts focus on the need and importance of the customer service chain and its processes. How effective and customer friendly they are; often decides future of the customers dealing with them. One thing that each and every individual in a customer service organization must realize is that, effective customer service or serving the customers effectively is a top down approach. This would mean that right from the person who is at the helm of the affairs of the company, i.e. the director right up to the front line executive or associate, each and every one of them is equally important in the customer service chain. Any broken link in the chain would mean that the customers are not able to have an experience that they expect or is promised by the organization.

The customers at their end as well, also associate a particular organization with certain degree of service standards. This also depends to an extent on the kind of price that they are paying for the services. Any area where they feel that they are not getting the full value of their money, leads to discontentment and in very few cases that translates into complaints. Customers who complain are giving a chance to the service provider to retain their loyalty and whether they are able to find satisfactory solutions from the service provider or not will make sure that whether the customer will continue doing business with them or shift to an alternate competing brand. The ability of the employees to constantly give its customers WOW experience even in adverse and demanding situations will ensure that the organization is able to retain customer loyalty.

For organizations as well, it is very important to retain customer loyalty; simply for the fact that, winning over a new customer is twice as costly as retaining the loyalty of an existing customer. There a few basic principals which an organization must follow in an effort to retain customer loyalty.

? Effective customer service should be a top down approach and each and every individual to be equally responsible irrespective of his position
? Ensure that the employees have a customer serving attitude
? Effective training and skill upgradation opportunities are provided to the employees
? Ensure customer friendly systems and process's

Effectively and efficiently practicing and keeping these few basic fundamental principals in mind will ensure that the organization is able to retain customer loyalty in a much better way leading to all round business growth.

Author is an experienced customer service professional with over 12 years of experience in the customer services industry.

Can be contacted at saurabh.saini19@gmail.com. Blog: http://saurabh-saini.blogspot.com