Having effective and accessible customer service creates a repetitive buying habit, which in turn creates loyalty. Loyalty is crucial to a brand since it is much more cost effective. It is five times more costly to gain a new customer than it is to keep an existing customer. One example of a brand that does a fantastic job of using effective customer service to maintain its consumer base is Amazon. They were even named the number one company for customer service by a market researcher, Temkin Group, in 2011.
Amazon is a brand name that almost all of us have come to know and love. As college students, we especially love Amazon when it comes to buying textbooks because they are much cheaper than on-campus bookstore prices. Another reason we love Amazon is because of their customer service. We all can probably think of a time when Amazon messed up a part of our order, but we can probably also remember a time when Amazon helped us get it straightened out with little to no effort. Amazon has impeccable customer service, and because of that we return again and again for all of our online ordering needs.
Along with their customer service, Amazon offers great loyalty programs. They offer Amazon Prime and Amazon Student (a special edition of Amazon Prime for Students that includes a free six month trial). Amazon Student allows students to have free two day shipping which comes in handy for those who wait until the last minute to order books or supplies. Amazon also allows you to schedule deliveries for products that you order on a regular basis so you don’t have to worry about it when you run out. This helps to create a relationship between consumers and the Amazon brand. When Amazon does not fail us we are much more likely to become return buyers. In the long run, having fantastic customer service is cheaper for Amazon than recruiting new customers to use their services.
-Stephanie Jordan, Morgan McCleaf, and Danielle Walters
Photo Courtesey of: Amazon.com
IMC Hawks Blog 
WHY? That is a key IMC question. WHY have great customer service? If it is merely for customer loyalty than that becomes part of your brand narrative. Is that their WHY? If it is, that’s OK, and it’s clearly working on some level. Other companies might have equally great customer service for a different WHY. They might talk about pride or more holistically about customer experience or worth. Zappos has great customer service for reasons other than customer loyalty. Amazon is one of the more important companies to look at so keep your eyes on them and their WHYs.
Dr. Olsen,
Thank you for commenting and bringing a very important question to our attention.
You make a great point that there are many reasons as to why a company may have stellar custom service. Success can be measured in various ways and it is not solely dependent on the amount of loyalty a brand may have.
Thank you again, Dr. Olsen!
-Danielle Walters