If you’ve worked with me, you know that I read everything. I recently came across a powerful report, written by CRM Guru Bob Thompson, titled The Loyalty Connection: Secrets to Customer Retention and Increased Profits. We’ve posted this insightful piece on our CRP Knowledge Center, and recommend that you download it from there right now. In the white paper Bob Thompson, who is also editor of CRM Guru and someone I really respect and admire, talks about how the sheer need and easy-to-imagine benefit of creating loyal customers is missed because some executives lack insight about what’s really required to build and support customer loyalty initiatives. Bob tells us they also lack insight about the payback when such initiatives are done well. My favorite section is "How to Retain or Win Back Customers." In it, Bob shares how the principles and practices espoused can be directly applied to managing your reference customer relationships. He also talks about building a compelling business case and shares approaches and concepts you can leverage. Overall, The Loyalty Connection is a great read; Thompson’s writing style is very easy to get through and understand! Promise Phelon, Partner promise.phelon@phelongroup.com