One of the major indicators of a brand’s success is customer loyalty. A brand’s ability to retain customers speaks volumes about the quality of its products and services and the quality of its customer relationship management.
It makes sense to promote customer loyalty, no matter what niche you’re in. Existing, happy customers are more likely to make additional purchases since they have already used and familiarized themselves with your brand.
Therefore, improving customer loyalty is a worthwhile investment for any company seeking to maintain a steady flow of revenue and keep its brand reputation in good standing.
Read on for our 7 actionable strategies to help you improve your brand’s customer loyalty.
Provide Great Customer Service
Customer loyalty begins and ends with excellent customer service.
People will want to stick with a brand in the long run if they receive a high level of care throughout their customer journey. This care involves the brand readily supporting the customer when they have a question or concern, as well as in any other interaction they may have with the brand, e.g. on social media.
Great customer care is more than just being polite and accommodating to people when receiving their inquiries. It’s about going the extra mile to show existing and potential customers that your brand works in their best interests.
Some great customer experience strategies include following up after a purchase with a thank you note, having several pricing options to suit a variety of budgetary needs, and frequently modifying your offer to match the expectations of your customer base.
Start a Rewards Program
People want to be rewarded for their loyalty to your brand. When you meet this expectation, customers are much more inclined to commit further to your company and offer.
It’s a win-win situation: customers that feel valued by receiving rewards points are motivated to speak favorably of your business and tell their friends and contacts about it.
Airlines, hotels, restaurants, and fitness facilities now accept reward points. If you’re a small business owner, you have the freedom (and lack of red tape) to give your top customers creative, unconventional rewards.
Think about sending a free gift with any repeat purchase or providing free delivery through your online store for purchases that exceed a specific threshold. Alternatively, you can partner up with another brand to provide gifts or mutual discounts.
Remember to make it simple for your clients to use their points. Ensure your CRM software has the most recent details on each customer regarding their customer status and the awards they are eligible for. Test customer support software to check whether you use the most practical tool to help you deliver this benefit.
Have a Referral Program in Place
Referral programs are another way of cultivating customer loyalty easily and effectively.
Happy customers are often motivated to recommend your brand to their friends and family; however, you may incentivize them to do this more consistently if you have a solid referral program in place.
A typical referral program offers double-sided advantages, i.e. something of value for the person making the referral and the new customer who registers or makes a purchase through that referral.
More likely, people will agree to be referred and eventually become your new customers if you provide them and their friends or acquaintance with a reward. Coupon codes for discounted products or being added to a special brand advocate mailing list, so they are the first to learn about new offers are common benefits for people participating in referral programs.
Be Socially Aware
To remain relatable to their customer base, brands must engage in social movements, speak out against injustices, and openly support human rights. Displaying social awareness is a major contributor to enhancing customer loyalty.
Social media, in general, can be a potent tool for keeping up with any current social trend, learning your customers’ opinions on recent events, and ensuring long-term customer loyalty by engaging in relevant discussions.
Examples of social awareness include practical yet meaningful actions, like updating the look of your company’s social media pages in honor of Pride Month or making charitable donations in the wake of catastrophic local or global events.
The aforementioned behaviors are indicative of a company’s principles and ideals. Your brand should keep up with social events and respond to them appropriately if you want to show your user base that your company is made up of people who care about the well-being of others.
Perform Customer Segmentation
Identifying and meeting the precise demands of customers is one of the greatest approaches to improving customer loyalty.
However, it is unlikely that all of your customers will have the same needs and interests. Plus, the more customers you target and acquire, the more complicated it becomes to target each one of them in a more focused way.
Customer segmentation offers an optimal way of personalizing your approach to satisfy various demands across various customer groups. It is performed by segmenting your existing customers based on particular characteristics, such as their purchasing history or common interests.
Personalization is the name of the game here. More tailored marketing enables you to pinpoint and efficiently target the customer categories that might produce the most returns on your marketing investments. Through this approach, you not only get the best bang for your buck, but you also foster customer loyalty by showing your customer base that you continuously learn what they want and know what they need.
Customer segmentation also gives you a better idea of how your customers want to be contacted, e.g. by email, social media, or other modes of communication, such as text message customer support.
Simply put, personalizing your communication with customers is a surefire way to ensure a better rate of repeat business and loyalty.
Encourage Reviews
Encouraging customers to leave reviews is a great way to let people know you respect their opinions. Through this strategy, you demonstrate your dedication to constantly improving your offer and customer service to serve your user base better.
There are various methods of asking for customer feedback, but it works best after a person engages with your brand. For instance, after contacting your customer care team, the agent that handled the communication can send a follow-up email to see how the conversation went and whether the customer was happy with the level of care provided.
Of course, to increase the likelihood that the person provides feedback, making the process quick, easy, and pleasant is essential. Forget about multi-page forms and open-ended questions—be clear and concise in what you’re asking them to comment on. Use a star-based rating system for the majority of your questions. Then, once they reach the end of the form, give them space to write their own comments if they wish to do so.
Reviews are valuable because they can contain sincere endorsements and constructive feedback that you can use to revamp or update your products and services. When deciding whether or not to buy from you, someone who may be on the fence will read reviews to learn about previous customers’ interactions with your business. The more reviews you have, the better.
Be Responsive to Feedback
Getting customers to leave feedback is just the start. Whether a customer’s review or feedback is favorable or unfavorable, you should always react to it.
Being responsive to customers’ feedback shows that you appreciate their ideas and opinions, both positive and negative, and allows you to either thank them for their kind words or build a case for how you plan to improve your services.
Potential customers looking at reviews of your brand will see that you are willing to cooperate with your user base to enhance your offer or remedy any mistakes resulting from your team’s error. Therefore, although nobody likes receiving negative comments, always make it a point to turn the situation around in your favor by demonstrating that you are aware of possible issues that your customers have come across and that you plan to work on those.
Try to come up with various template answers for different scenarios so that your responses always remain courteous, professional, and consistent with the tone of voice of your brand.
Not only will this approach enhance your brand reputation, but it will also foster more customer loyalty, especially if you manage to redeem yourself in the eyes of customers who have had a bad experience with you for any reason.
Final Thoughts
Customer loyalty is the cornerstone of any company’s strategy, especially one that strives for longevity and expansion. That is why it should be an ongoing priority.
Therefore, to ensure that your customers stick around with your brand as long as possible, try employing some or all of the customer loyalty strategies listed above.
