How Service Leaders Can Increase Customer Loyalty

Pivot toward a customer value enhancement strategy

A good service experience may prevent customers from leaving, but it is not enough to make them stay

Customers are ultimately loyal to a company’s product or service offering. Gartner research found that the role of customer service in increasing customer loyalty is twofold: resolving customer issues in a low-effort manner and helping customers derive greater value from the product — what we call “value enhancement.”

Capture an untapped opportunity for customer service to drive loyalty

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    The best service organisations capitalise on interactions that impact loyalty through value enhancement. They not only resolve customer issues, they also make sure customers leave an interaction more confident in their purchase decision and better able to maximise the value of their product or service.

    Lauren Villeneuve

    Director, Advisory, Gartner

    Successful value enhancement greatly increases the probability a customer will stay

    Value enhancement represents an economically significant opportunity for service to boost customer loyalty — not just mitigate disloyalty. This opportunity holds true regardless of switching costs and industry or how a service organisation measures customer loyalty.

    Probability of customers choosing to stay with the company

    Insights you can use

    To help customer service and support leaders drive customer loyalty and customer retention, Gartner took a threefold investigative approach consisting of a customer panel survey with 6,000 global participants, service and support leader survey with 100+ global participants, and interviews with 80+ service leaders across industries, geographies and business type. Service leaders can utilise the resources below to learn more about implementing a customer value enhancement strategy. 

    Derive greater value from the product with customer value enhancement activities

    Customer loyalty can be increased by performing value enhancement activities that leave a customer feeling like they can use the product better and are more confident in their purchase decision. Download the guide to reveal five key ways to drive value enhancement during service interactions.

    If customers receive value during a service interaction, there is
    The opportunity for value enhancement is growing

    Operationalise value enhancement

    While value enhancement is relatively uncommon today, the silver lining is that it is occurring organically without a deliberate strategy to support it. However, there is a significant opportunity to expand where value enhancement occurs because of the shifting make-up of contact types and their relative suitability for value enhancement conversations. Download the infographic to learn how to kick-start your value enhancement strategy.

    Measure success with Value Enhancement Score

    While incorporating value-enhancing activities is an important step to reaping loyalty rewards, an adjusted measurement strategy is also crucial. Measuring value enhancement will enable service leaders to gather a baseline, to identify the strongest value-enhancing opportunities and individuals, to track progress and, most important, to measure success.

    Relative impact on loyalty (retention, increased wallet share and positive word of mouth) of NPS, CSAT and value enhancement score

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    Gartner customer service experts

    Devin F. Poole
    Senior Director, Advisory

    Lauren Villeneuve 
    Director, Advisory

    Brent Adamson 
    Distinguished VP, Advisory

    Mark R. Dauigoy
    Senior Director, Advisor

    Tiffany Fountain
    Managing Vice President

    Sarah Dibble
    Senior Principal, Research

    Philip Jenkins 
    Senior Director Analyst

    John Quaglietta
    Senior Director Analyst

    Gartner is a trusted advisor and an objective resource for 15,000+ organisations in 100+ countries.

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