Ben Mcconnell

Creating Customer Evangelists: How Loyal Customers Become a Volunteer Salesforce Ben Mcconnell Revised edition

When customers are truly thrilled about their experience with your product or service, they can become outspoken evangelists for your company. This group of satisfied believers can be converted into a potent marketing force to grow your universe of customers.

Authors Jackie Huba and Ben McConnell explain how to convert already loyal customers into influential and enthusiastic evangelists. The year-long research project that led to Creating Customer Evangelists outlines the framework for developing evangelism marketing strategies and programs. The ultimate goal is to create communities of influencers who drive sales or membership for your company or organization.

From their research into the best practices of some of the most forward-thinking companies with legions of evangelists who spread the word, Huba and McConnell outline and explain the six basic tenets of creating customer evangelists:

* Customer plus-delta: Continuously gather customer feedback
* Napsterize knowledge: Make it a point to share knowledge freely
* Build the buzz: Expertly build word-of-mouth networks
* Create community: Encourage communities of customers to meet and share
* Make bite-size chunks: Devise specialized, smaller offerings to get customers to bite.
* Create a cause: Focus on making the world, or your industry, better

Huba and McConnell profile highly successful companies to illustrate these tenets and prove how solid customer relationships build and sustain companies through good and rocky times. These in-depth company profiles provide real-life examples of evangelism marketing at work, including the opportunities and pitfalls of specific campaigns.

Creating Customer Evangelists explains how organizations as diverse as Southwest Airlines, Krispy Kreme Doughnuts, The Dallas Mavericks, IBM, and others successfully built their customer base and created targeted marketing programs to involve their biggest fans. These programs have produced legions of unofficial salespeople and a cost-effective and powerful marketing force.

By deepening customer relationships, successful organizations create communities that generate grassroots support and value for their products and services. Creating Customer Evangelists focuses on this ultimate marketing approach. Huba and McConnell demonstrate how you can convert good customers into exceptional ones who willingly spread the word.