Getting new customers to buy from you is only half the battle. To win the war, you’ll need to keep them engaged to ensure they remain loyal to your brand forever.
Moreover, finding new customers is more expensive than keeping old ones, which means ensuring your existing customers keep buying from you will help save costs. This is why it’s important to focus on ways to make them happy.
Since your existing customers already know how you operate, they probably trust you and will be happier to make repeat purchases. However, if you don’t use the right strategies, you can quickly lose them to the competition.
So, how do you prevent this from happening and ensure you have a pool of loyal customers? This complete guide will walk you through 7 techniques that will help.
You’ll also find helpful scenarios that will make it easier to implement these loyalty solutions and ensure growth.
Now, let’s begin!
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1. Make Interactions Personal
Most human beings enjoy interacting at a personal level. If you can recreate this personalization in your business interactions, it can make a huge difference.
You will likely boost your brand loyalty by making customers feel you respect their feelings and have a deep understanding of their needs.
Take this scenario, for instance.
I always get my groceries from a supermarket close to my house. While it is not the cheapest around, I feel at home here. Why’s that?
First, the storekeepers always greet me by name whenever I go into the supermarket. Then, one of them bags my item just the way I like it because I am very particular. On my birthdays, I always receive a genuine birthday message and an email with a discount code on the products I usually buy!
I’ve been going here for years without considering any other option. Buying from here feels like an interaction between friends instead of just any transaction.
You can apply all of these to your business and take things further by doing things like personalizing all types of communications like emails and SMS.
Also, consider sending out thank-you messages tailored to individual customers instead of automated ones. For instance, consider the following message:
Thank you for your purchase.
And compare it to this:
Hey Mark, thank you for buying your Samsung Television from us. I hope you are having fun with your new system. If you need any help or have questions, contact us, and we’ll be sure to help!
While the first feels robotic, the second goes into personal detail. There’s also a follow-up alongside an open line of communication that shows the consumer you genuinely care.
Going further, get to know your customers’ purchase habits and personal details and include them in your interactions, such as the scenario listed above. This can help in ensuring customer engagement and loyalty in the long run.
2. Create a Community for Your Brand
Another lesson you can learn from the scenario I gave above is the feeling of being in a family/community. If you have an online business, you can recreate this feeling for your customers there.
To do this, build a community where your customers can interact, connect, and share their experiences amongst themselves. This will make them feel they belong to something while having a place to get help.
In this case, you have many options. The first one we recommend is to create an online forum. Subreddits, Facebook, or Discord groups will all work excellently here. Better still, you can create a dedicated forum on your website.
Then, promote conversations relating to your offerings, industry trends, or fun topics. The idea is to get them to talk and air their opinions.
Another excellent loyalty strategy is to organize events with exclusive invites.
These could include Q&A sessions and webinars featuring industry professionals. With this customer retention strategy, your customers will be able to share deeper connections with your brand.
3. Improve Your Customer Service
Great customer service is essential for customer loyalty. This is because customers are more likely to keep buying from a company they can get help.
Take this scenario, for instance:
You buy products from two companies. Company A’s product has an issue, and you reach out to the customer support team. However, they push you around different departments until you give up in frustration.
In contrast, Company B’s customer service team goes swiftly into action and offers a replacement. The support team then follows up consistently to make sure you are happy with the resolution.
Now, assuming this was a real scenario, which would you pick? If you enjoy your comfort, then I’m guessing it’ll be Company B. Many customers think in this manner too, and would rather choose a company with a polite and responsive support team.
So, how do you implement this loyalty strategy in your organization? First, you’ll want to ensure your team is available 24/7 on various outlets. These should include live chat, email, phone, and social media support.
What’s more, you’ll want to train your team to be polite in their interactions with customers. The good adage “Customers are always right” applies here.
You’ll also want to streamline the customer support process.
Remove unnecessary waiting time and give the team the authority to handle issues without always needing authorization. This makes things move faster instead of redirecting customers between departments.
If you have the budget for it, you can use a chat bot to answer basic queries. This frees up the support team, allowing them to focus and resolve issues fast—this boosting customer loyalty.
4. Remain Innovative
Many established companies start to relax and don’t make efforts to keep customers satisfied. The effect is a high customer churn rate that leaves them running to figure out what went wrong.
While they may believe their offering is good enough, it isn’t.
The business world is always changing, and eventually, someone will swoop in with a better customer experience. Ultimately, you’ll lose your share of the market and become bankrupt if you aren’t careful.
To prevent this and reduce churn, you need to constantly be on your toes and remain innovative. Also, evaluate your current consumer experience and find how to make things better. Ask yourself the following questions:
- Can my product become better?
- Is it easy for customers to use my product?
- Do my current marketing professionals target the right audience?
- Where do my customers have issues, and how can I make them easier?
Remember that meeting expectations are not enough to ensure customer loyalty. You’ll need to exceed them to ensure this happens.
5. Customers Loyalty Programs
Providing incentives using a customer loyalty program is an excellent way to show you appreciate their patronage. This loyalty marketing strategy helps improve customer loyalty and ensures they keep coming back for more.
To do this, set up loyalty programmes that reward long-term customers with gifts, discounts, and exclusive offers.
Now, you may be wondering why do customer loyalty programs work.
Well, customers, like other humans, love to feel appreciated. Out of all the businesses in the same line as yours, they’ve settled for yours. This is not an easy feat, but using a loyalty program is a great way to return the favor.
You can also encourage clients to interact with your business to earn freebies. For instance, rewards customers who share, like, or post information regarding your products.
Better still, reward those who leave product reviews or complete surveys. This ensures profitable relationships for both parties since customers get freebies while you get more engagement and customer loyalty.
6. Reward Brand Advocates
Word-of-mouth is the most reliable type of marketing. You are more likely to buy from a brand if the suggestion comes from a trusted friend. In fact, it is more profitable than any paid marketing campaign since it is free.
You can further improve customer loyalty by rewarding loyal customers who say positive things about your brand online. While many of them do it because they trust your brand, adding an incentive to it will greatly improve customer loyalty.
So, how do you reward these brand advocates? You have many options. First, you can put them in the spotlight after getting permission.
To do this, highlight them on your websites, marketing materials, and social media pages. This lets them know you appreciate their support and shows prospective buyers that people genuinely love your brand.
Another excellent strategy is to provide advocates with special benefits through a well designed loyalty program.
These could be invites to exclusive content/events, early access to sales, discount codes, and freebies. Brand advocates will be more motivated to support your brand since they know you appreciate the efforts.
Finally, sending a personalized note or email to show your appreciation for their support can go a long way. This is a cheap alternative that can significantly improve customer loyalty and ensure business growth.
7. Be Genuine
Authenticity and genuineness are traits that many brands don’t have. The best customers go in search of these when looking for a brand to do business and remain loyal when they find them.
In fact, Forbes states that 86% of customers give priority to authenticity when searching for a brand. This is a huge number and you’ll be missing out on a higher customer lifetime value if you don’t take advantage of it.
By being authentic and vulnerable to customers, you can make them loyal to you. Note that authenticity does not mean you let consumers in on your business secrets.
Instead, it means sharing your accomplishments, accepting your mistakes, and letting customers see what happens behind the scenes.
So, how do you achieve these? First, you’ll want to add images of employees and other staff to blog posts, newsletters, and company magazines. This ensures consumers can put a face to your business, making it easier for them to stay loyal.
Next, accept your mistakes. Did you send in the wrong product? Or was there a delay in your last delivery? Sending a genuine apology that shows how hard you are working to correct the situation and ensure that it doesn’t happen again will do the trick.
Accepting your mistakes and acknowledging them will help you build trust and show your authenticity.
Finally, show your sincerity on social media. Instead of using it as a platform for pitching to consumers, it can serve other purposes.
For instance, you can post funny images, show behind-the-scenes product development, or get constructive feedback. This ensures a two-way interaction and helps humanize your brand, ultimately ensuring customer loyalty.
Conclusion
As you can see, there is no downside to ensuring customer loyalty growth. We’ve listed some helpful strategies to ensure a vibrant community of loyal customers that drive growth. Remember that the objective is to offer consumers unforgettable experiences that make them feel appreciated and valued.
Using these strategies, you can boost your customer loyalty and ensure the long-term growth of your business.
Don’t forget that building customer loyalty is a consistent process and does not end. A short period of negligence can result in you losing clients to the competition.
Start employing these strategies today improving customer loyalty today.