Roberto Ricossa initiated a loyal program at Nortel.

For marketers, and their companies, moving satisfaction to loyalty is the challenge

Nortel’s Roberto Ricossa says research shows that 65-85 percent of all customers who leave suppliers are satisfied with them.

“So what’s wrong with the picture?,” asked the Field Marketing Vice President for the Canadian company’s Americas operations during the discussion he led at WorldCity’s Marketing Connections event last week. “Is customer satisfaction the end game? You can be satisfied with the service, with the product, but it’s taking it to the next step, to customer loyalty.”

Olympus’ Tito Rodriguez

That statistic is made possible, and makes sense, because “the cost of changing is very, very low,” said Olympus Latin America Marketing Director Tito Rodriguez.

Marketing Connections, sponsored by HP and hosted at the Hyatt Regency Coral Gables, is one of six event series WorldCity hosts for South Florida’s multinational and international business community. The others are Global Connections, the CEO Club, HR Connections, Trade Connections and Government Affairs Connections.

Every other month, Marketing Connections brings together the top marketing officials from the 1,100 multinationals in WorldCity’s Who’s Here database. The topic discussed last week was customer loyalty.

Western Union’s Juan Pablo Valdes holds up a loyalty program card the company uses

Not only is the cost to change vendors low; it is also expensive for companies. “Every time we lose an agent,” said Western Union’s Juan Pablo Valdes, “we lose 80 percent of their business, no matter what we do.”

Wilson Learning’s Perez with book on customer loyalty

“It’s all about creating a positive emotional experience,” said Alejandro Perez, vice president of Business Development at Wilson Learning, Latin America.

Particularly in challenging economic times like now, when there are employee and service cutbacks, keeping customers loyal is challenging. In this crowd of frequent fliers, one area where the attendees said they had noticed cutbacks is at airlines, whether it is charging for luggage, cutting back on snacks or charging for preferred seating.

“It’s not only affecting us” as customers, said Adriana Toledo, who is in charge of loyalty programs for Sol Melia’s Latin America operations. “It’s affecting their employees and that affects their service to us.”

A number of companies spoke about the specific programs they use to keep close to their customers because, as Black & Decker’s Renata Panzarini, said, “problems are happening every single day in every single place.”

Panzarini, whose Latin America operations are in 16 countries, said he is copied on emails of complaint, compliment or question from throughout the region, and receives up to 150 per day. “I read every single email,” he said. “I reply to them, sometimes I call them.”

Nokia’s Matt Rothschild

At Nokia Latin America, marketing people work in a call center once a quarter, listening to the same thing from customers — complaints, compliments and questions. Matt Rothschild, the head of Go To Market for Latin America, believes its effective. “You can hear it in their decisions,” he says of marketing people who have spoken with customers. “ ‘I am doing this because of what a customer told me — or yelled at me.’ “

Toledo, representing Sol Melia, the Spanish hotel operator, recalled the customer obsession of a former employer, the Four Seasons. A particular customer had made it known she liked a specific type of Greek yogurt, and was accustomed to having it while in New York. Turns out, in Palm Beach, it was only available 30 miles from the Four Seasons property there. “I know,” she said. “I had to get it every day.”

At Wendy’s Latin America, the company asks for customer feedback on the back of receipts and on table-top displays with cards, said Guillermo del Solar, marketing manager. The idea is to take them to the internet, where they can make commments — and get rewarded with a free Frosty.

Nortel’s Ricossa explained a program he created at the company, one that tries to move beyond being simply a reward program to be a true loyalty program. Nortel sells largely through distributors in the region, and many of them can sell competing products from Avaya, Siemens and Cisco.

Nortel offers points not only for sales but also for attending sessions to learn about its products, for viewing webinars and otherwise educating themselves on Nortel products and services. The “Click and Win” program started four years ago with 400 members and now has 1,700. The participants are individual sales people.

In an effort to grown the program, Nortel offers the latest in technology in the United States, before it is readily available in Latin America, whether it’s an iPhone or Play Station 3 game console. “And I don’t just mail it to you,” he said. At the next sales meeting, “I ask the manager to hand it to you. I want to make the others jealous.”

For the top 20 producers, there is an all-expenses-paid trip for the employee and spouse to a Latin American destination that the person might not normally visit, whether a Caribbean island or Machu Picchu in Peru.

Technology can be a friend in the endeavor to stay close to customers. Nokia’s Rothschild said he is far less likely to be interested in an airline email that is clearly sent to a massive database but would find it useful to receive one that says, “Hi, Matt. We noticed you fly to Mexico every other week. Could we help by offering a good rate on a rental car?”

When Nokia phone contracts near expiration, a series of emails alert customers to the expiration and offer information about the newest and latest technology that might be suggested by the customer’s current equipment and usage. “The conversion rate is very high,” he said. “The key is understanding who we are talking to.”

Like Nortel, Medtronic and to a lesser extent Chevron market to a distributor or agent, and the end user might be unaware or minimally concerned he is using the product or service. “Think about gas,” Damon Echevarria, an area sales manager for Central America and the Caribbean. “It’s stinky, dirty and you never see it. What it comes down to is location and price. I have end users and I have station owners, which is where I build my relationships.”

“If we don’t talk about service, if we don’t tell them we provide it, they never know it,” said Urs Brunner, director of Operations and Strategic Management with Medtronic Latin America.

In the end, said Nortel’s Ricossa, “It’s not about having a loyalty program. It’s about attitude. It’s about getting it done. The loyalty program is only a vehicle.”