Your Job Isn’t to Keep the Store; Your Job is to Keep Customers Printer friendly format
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Last fall I was in a rural town for a football game that my daughter was cheering for. She had to be at the game an hour early. So, I dropped her off and drove to the downtown area to see if I could find something interesting to photograph while I waited for the game to start. (I’m a hobbyist photographer.) It didn’t take me long to find that something interesting. I found an S&H Green Stamps sign hanging over what used to be a grocery store.

 

I immediately thought of my mother when I saw the S&H Green Stamps sign. When I was a little girl, I remember my mother specifically chose to shop at retailers that offered Green Stamps and she loved redeeming the stamps for gifts. S&H (Sperry & Hutchinson) introduced the world to customer loyalty programs back in the 1930s with Green Stamps.

 

Next, I thought about the purpose of S&H Green Stamps: customer loyalty. In the 1930s, retailers truly understood the importance of customer loyalty. I did a quick Google search on S&H Green Stamps after I saw the vintage sign. I found a 1962 S&H Green Stamps commercial where a small town grocery store owner explains that his job is not to keep the store; his job is to keep customers. That’s really profound, isn’t it? Like the grocery store owner, your job isn’t simply about running your school or business. At the end of the day, your job is to keep your customers (happy).

 

The S&H Green Stamps sign reminded me that we need to get back to a true focus on customer loyalty. Customer loyalty can’t be a push of the month, a buzz phrase, or just fluff. The essence of an organization needs to be about keeping customers. S&H Green Stamps was created to help retailers keep customers. The program worked because business owners understood the importance and critical need of keeping customers. Does your school or business truly “get” customer loyalty? If not, you have work to do.

 

 

Myra Golden runs Myra Golden Media, a customer experience design company helping organizations deliver the best possible customer experience and positioning companies to completely restore customer confidence when things go wrong. She is the co-author of Beyond WOW and a highly sought-after professional keynote speaker.