The Butterfly Customer: Capturing the Loyalty of Today's Elusive Consumer. Rev. ed.

Janet Arnett is the former campus manager of adult education at Ontario’s Georgian College. She is the author of Antiques and Collectibles: Starting Small, The Grange at Knock, and 673 Ways to Save Money.

Loyalty grows from trust. And trust grows from consistency, plus a
strong match between what is promised and what is delivered.

The authors’ theory of building trust relationships is a return to
basics and a repudiation of the currently popular wisdom of striving for
exceptional service. Trust is built in all aspects of the business—the
environment, the staff skills, the messages sent via the media. It’s
the everyday grind that does it. There’s no room for superstars.

The book explores the high cost (especially to retail and
service-sector businesses) of low customer trust, as well as how
disconnects enter the seller–customer relationship and destroy
credibility. The authors develop the theory that providing exceptional
service is a negative, undermining the consistency customers seek. With
numerous jabs at bestselling authors with opposing views, O’Dell and
Pajunen lead us through the steps in the “service kaleidoscope” and
the process of conducting a “3-D audit.” All this is for the purpose
of determining if the business is “focussed, faithful, flexible and
fast” from the customer’s perspective.

Throughout the book, short sidebars suggest ways in which the reader
can measure a specific business against the theory and principles of
transforming flighty butterflies into loyal monarchs.

The book is a light read with some thought-provoking concepts for the
business owner/manager who is seeking to build a base of loyal
customers.