HOW TO CREATE CUSTOMER EVANGELISTS

Excerpted from the book "Creating Customer Evangelists" by Ben McConnell and Jackie Huba.

How to get customers to tell a lot of people about their experience with you; to act as customer evangelists?

The obvious lesson is the importance of creating a distinct experience. People want to ‘do’ things rather than just ’buy’ things. They’re highly conscious of consumerism and don’t want to just consume and then die. They measure their life in experiences.

WHAT DOES A CUSTOMER EVANGELIST LOOK LIKE?

• They purchase and believe in your product and /or service
• They are loyal and passionately recommend you
• They buy from you as gifts for others
• They provide unsolicited feedback or praise
• They forgive occasional dips in service and quality, but let you know they are not bought.
• They extol your virtues freely.
• They feel connected to something bigger than themselves

HOW DO YOU CREATE CUSTOMER EVANGELISTS?

• Continuously gather customer feedback
• Napsterize knowledge: share your knowledge freely
• Build buzz: through word of mouth networks
• Create community: encourage communities of customers to meet and share Make bite-size chunks: devise specialized, smaller offerings to encourage customers to bite Create a cause: focus on making the world, or an industry, better.