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Creating Loyal Customers is essential to the long term sustainability of any business in any industry.

The statistics are incredible. Studies show Loyal Customers come back more often spend more money each visit and talk about and promote your business to four to five times more people than a satisfied customer does. Loyal Customers even complain less. And for every dollar you spend keeping a loyal customer, it costs the typical business 5 dollars for a new customer. Loyal Customers, gotta love ‘em!

So how do you create loyal customers?

There are 3 essential connections that need to be understood.

o Points of Connection

o Personnel Connection

o Emotional Connection

What are points of connection? Points of connection will be every point where you’re customer (or prospective customer) comes into contact with your business. Points of connection include (but certainly not limited to) your website, your phone system, your location and so on. Every point of connection should be an easy to use, positive experience for your customer. If you’re a restaurant, you can have the best food in the world, but if the hostess is rude, you have degraded the experience for your customer. If the client has to go through a complicated phone tree to get to a real person that could be a real turn off. If your website is difficult to go thru or has old information, that could cause a problem in people’s perception of your business. All of the above mentioned make it more difficult for your customer in becoming a Loyal Customer.

Each point of connection needs to be (at the bare minimum) a neutral event, best if a positive experience. As each positive experience builds on other positive experiences, you expose the possibility of creating a Loyal Customer.

I did not type incorrectly when I typed Personnel Connection. Yes, personal connection is important and I’ll talk about it in step 3. Traditionally, when we think of customer service, we usually are focused on the front line people, those in front of the customer. However when you are talking about raising the bar and creating Loyal Customers, the personnel that need to be involved is everyone. Yes, everyone. CEO, Executive team, maintenance staff, tech geeks, back office staff, everyone. Here’s why.

Let’s start with the tech geeks. If they are in charge of the website, would a strong focus on creating loyal customers change the way they may look at working their website? Right now, they are probably disconnected. What you often see in companies is a constant back and forth between the tech folks and the customer service folks on making a customer-centric website. What a waste of time, money and meetings. And while that’s going on, you’re turning off the people you need most - customers. A customer loyalty focused staff resolves the issues before they even become a problem. This is true of any department.

How about the executive management team? After all, about once or twice a year, “customer service” becomes the topic of the moment and then satisfied that people get it, they move on to something else. Yet a couple months later, out comes a new corporate policy that has the front line people shaking their heads knowing that they just made it more difficult to work with their clients. It happens all the time. The executive team is so focused on bottom line results that they aren’t looking at the fact that they may drive customers away. Folks, customers are the bottom line results.

All’s you need to do is look at the industry leaders. Those company’s that continually produce results in good times and bad. They may not be flashy, but they are consistent. Look closer and you’ll see an organization that strives for creating loyal customers from the board room to the break room.

The third Connection is the Emotional Connection. Think of the places or businesses YOU feel loyalty to, whether it’s a restaurant, clothing store or even a particular hardware store. Is it an emotional connection? You bet it is! The fact is the vast majority of consumers want to be loyal; we love (an emotional word there!) having a favorite place or business. If nothing else, it makes our life easier. Loyal to an airline? Makes travel arrangements easier. Loyal to a restaurant? Guess where I’m taking guests from out of town. Loyal to a supply company? It’s so much easier than having to hunt for a new one each time.

Once you create that emotional connection where people like (dare I say love?) doing business with you and feel valued in return, it becomes increasingly more difficult for your competitor’s to whisper sweet nothings and take their business away.

By creating positive experiences with your business at every point of connection, internally creating a totally customer-centric operation and creating a relationship of respect and value, an emotional connection, you create a relationship more profitable, less problems and ultimately more satisfying to all parties concerned.

What a great connection to make!

Do you consider yourself a “kid person” whether or not you are a parent? Would you like the idea of a business opportunity or franchise business that involves a product or service that is fun, exciting, and beneficial for young ones? Then take a look at the countless small businesses and home business franchises for sale that provide kid-centered products and services.

Two very well known children’s franchises are The Sylvan Learning Center and The Little Gym. The Little Gym has been around for 30 years and provides thousands of children with a kid-friendly gym environment in which to play and develop their motor skills. There is dancing, singing, running, swinging, jumping, flipping, somersaulting, shouting, and all other sorts of fun and chaos in a Little Gym. It is ranked #1 in children’s motor-skill developing franchises and can be found in 17 countries including over 230 in the U.S. The Little Gym is committed to both its franchise owners and the children in local communities; they provide each franchise owner with a personal business consultant, a library of operations and training manuals, and continued education programs.

The Sylvan Learning Center is not unlike The Little Gym. It has been franchising for over 28 years and has over 900 franchised centers. From their TV commercials you probably know that they provide K-12 students with instructional services in centers, online, and in homes. The brand itself is what makes it so successful; there are few who haven’t heard of it so many people turn to it rather than its competitors to tutor and assist their children in subjects they struggle with in school. If you are a leader in your community, enjoy working with children, and want to make a difference in the lives of both children and parents in your community, a Sylvan Learning Center franchise could be right for you.

There, obviously, are less known franchise opportunities in which you can work with kids. Pigtails & Crewcuts Children’s Salon is a franchise that provides a child-friendly environment for haircuts. So often kids are intimidated by adults’ salons and don’t want to get their haircut as a result; thus, parents have to fight their kids just so the children can avoid the “Cousin It look”. Pigtails & Crewcuts Salons make haircuts fun as they provide both kids and parents a good solution to a common problem. The salons also sell private label hair and body products, offer girls’ hairstyling for formal occasions, and host girls’ birthday parties. This business opportunity is most likely especially appealing for mothers of girls and hairstylists who have a knack for cutting kids’ hair while making them feel comfortable.

Nanny Poppinz is what you might expect it to be from the name. A nanny service that allows busy dual-income households to find the proper person to help care for and teach their children while providing the assurance that the nanny will be professionally trained and screened to provide maximum safety for their children. In a society where trying to find a “baby sitter” can become scary and sometimes downright impossible, having access to a database of certified and pre-screened professional nannies is a service that many families are searching for every day. As a Nanny Poppinz franchise owner you can provide your clients with the peace of mind of knowing that if they can’t be there for every moment of their children’s day at least someone with the safety and well being of their children can be.

Virtuoso Music is a franchise opportunity that combines the passion for children and teaching with the knack and appreciation of musical arts. The Virtuoso franchise providers offer music instruction and other music related products inside of customers homes, schools and other locations; in addition to coordinating musical bookings, recitals, festivals, community events, and performances. The beauty of this franchise that specifically helps children learn the musical world is that it can be run from home allowing the franchise owner the opportunity to stay close to his or her own family and home needs.

Another fun opportunity in the children’s franchise arena is Bounce U. Bounce U provides a party environment where children and parents can come to an indoor inflatable arena and take part in a large variety of activities involving giant inflatable structures. The “bounce house” is becoming a staple of the modern party and event and children of all ages love to participate in the fun of an inflatable environment. The Bounce U franchise owner can also offer open “free bounce” sessions outside of the booking and party environment to increase their revenue flow.

All of these franchises offer the freedom of owning your own business and the potential to have a successful and profitable business while capitalizing on the passion of franchise owners who love children and are concerned with their well being. Children are the motivators of a huge market, and they are also deserving of the attention of franchise business owners.