Maslow and "Deep Loyalty"

My column this week in the Financial Post looks at how you, your products or your company can absolutely maximize customer satisfaction and create “deep loyalty.” And you may have first learned about it in first-year sociology.

According to Chip Conley, founder of the California boutique hotel chain Joie de Vivre, the secret is to use Abraham Maslow's "hierarchy of needs" to delight your customers, employees and other key stakeholders. By supplying not only basic needs (e.g. food and shelter), but also people’s needs for safety, belonging and esteem, we can turn the customer experience into a significant competitive advantage.

Using this strategy, Joie de Vivre has not only survived the latest recession, but it is gaining market share. Better still, Conley told me in our interview, “We're creating an operating manual for working with humans."

Read the full story here.