If you want to improve your chances of driving loyalty and growing sales, try seeking a more complete view of the consumer's relationship with your products. Create opportunities for conversation and observation. Do as they say AND as they do and you will be in a better position to create products and messaging that will endure.

Regardless of what tools you use, the most important aspect of establishing strong relationships with customers is to hear their concerns and illustrate that those concerns matter to you.

Winning does not depend only on being better; it also depends on ensuring that your customers understand why your solutions are better for them!

Now's the perfect time to take a look at your organization and the potential VOC available to you. Such technologies as speech analytics and text analytics that mine unstructured VOC data are a starting point.

These are techniques and tools to be used in everyday communication as leaders, spouses, parents, friends, etc. They place focus on connecting with others and solving problems, and not on making an already emotional situation even worse.

Next time you get stuck on which levers to pull in order to grow your brand, take a moment and ask if you know who your customers are.

I had the pleasure of hearing executives from Progressive and USAA address their impressively relentless focus on customer satisfaction. These presentations were part of a two-day Net Promoter conference that celebrated the power of monitoring and addressing customer satisfaction at every point of contact.

Multiply the power of analytics through marketing, social media and customer service.

Start asking for referrals, and even more importantly, start posting your referral rate. Strive to improve the rate and make it part of regular discussions at management meetings. The lifetime value of a repeat customer is key -- not that one-time conversion on the front end.

These tactics aren't complicated, and you can perfect them over time in terms of their frequency, level of information, or approach. The key is to keep it up. You've spent the money to acquire those customers. Take simple, extra steps to nurture and keep them.