Everybody talks about customer service for the obvious reason that you need customer loyalty to support your dealership. The looming question is: Do you really know what customer service might mean? This article is going to introduce you to the psychological motivators for dealership loyalty.
The concept of customer service has been with us since St. Benedictine (AD 480-547) wrote a manual on how people should be treated when visiting monasteries. He made two customer service points. Th e first is, “all arriving guests should be treated as Christ…” The second is “everyone should do whatever needs to be done for the guests.” These quotes are from Excellence Wins by Horst Schulze founder of Ritz Carlton. By the way, Schulze’s book is recommended reading.
Recommending Schulze’s book is not the reason for this article. WEDA’s Dealer Institute has started a research project to further understand
the psychological motivators that contribute to customer loyalty. My son, Michael Cole, Ph.D., a professor at TCU, and I are the lead researchers along with Michael Piercy, vice president of dealer development for the Dealer Institute. Scott Magids, et al, listed 10 psychological variables in a November 2015 Harvard Business Review article, The New Science of Customer Emotion, that create high-valued customer partnerships. The research by Michael Cole, Michael Piercy, and I is to determine the extent these 10 psychological variables contribute to dealership loyalty in the agricultural industry.
Examples of psychological motivators include
- respects my independence to select my dealership of choice
- treats my family and me like we are family
- recognizes me as a producer of tomorrow using progressive farming practices
Western Equipment Dealer Magazine Winter 2019 Issue
By Larry Cole, PhD
