Transcripts

William J. McEwen:
There's a big difference between what some people refer to as loyalty -which is simply repeated behavior - and what we would call a brand marriage which is one that is grounded in an emotional connection.

William McEwen, author of the book, Married To The Brand says often companies who inspire true customer loyalty are the ones who look around their industry and say…

"It doesn't have to be that way and watch this." I would tell you that Southwest and Jet Blue succeeded because they looked at the airline business and said, "it doesn't have to be that way."

And that's also what Lexus did in the car business.

What differentiates Lexus is the passion felt by each and every dealer for providing the finest ownership experience you could possibly get. I talked to a Lexus salesman who said that, "a customer calls me up all the time and says, 'I'm going to drop my car off at 6 in the morning, will you have the loaner ready?' 'Yup, no problem, meet you there tomorrow.' " He said, "He'll never know that we don't open at that time, I will always be there at 6am for him." What would the normal dealer response be? "We don't open at 6, bring your car by at seven when we're open." And other car companies can look and say, "I wish I could do it. It's very tough to do". And that's right and what you want to do is do the tough things.

At somethingyoushouldknow.net I'm Mike Carruthers and that's Something You Should Know.