Turning Lost Customers Into Gold: --And the Art of Achieving Zero Defections

Cannie ( Keeping Customers for Life ) asserts that ``loyal customers spend more, refer new customers, and cost less to do business with than new customers.'' Yet the average American business loses 20% of its customers each year, losing hundreds of millions of dollars in profits. Can anything be done to stop the hemorrhaging, develop more effective customer service procedures and, as the author wonders, ``turn lost customers into gold''? In this useful guide, Cannie, founder of Learning Dynamics, develops effective procedures to regain lost customers through benchmarking, collecting data, analyzing defections and interviewing defectors. Once a realistic retention program is in place, Cannie describes the procedures a company should initiate to keep clients loyal, including removing communication barriers and resolving complaints. Her use of questionnaires, case studies and telephone marketing techniques enriches a book filled with concrete suggestions. Fortune Book Club alternate. (Jan.)