“Build customer loyalty” has become a quite common suggestion for e-commerce businesses, regardless of their specifics. The current economic situation and the pandemic’s consequences have impacted consumer attitudes towards brands.
As a result, they have become more careful about the purchased goods and services. And companies that have timely aligned themselves and prioritized to build customer loyalty have achieved great success in these difficult times.
In the end, statistics come into play and say that it will cost the company 5 times less to retain one customer than to find a new one. And this, in turn, contributes to more competent investment in the organization’s development.
Customers are the driving force of any business because everything will collapse if they are not there. That is why we would like in this article to consider the need to improve the strategy to build customer loyalty and ways to achieve it. Let’s get started!
Table of Contents:
- What is customer loyalty, and why is it important to build customer loyalty?
- 6 Critical tips to build customer loyalty
What is customer loyalty, and why is it important to build customer loyalty?
For companies, customer loyalty means buyers will likely want to return to them and reuse their services. This is directly affected by customer satisfaction with the purchased products, which is more important than cost, availability, or availability.
Undoubtedly, every company strives to ensure that its customers remain loyal to its product, for example, to not hesitate to pay a little more for it or to be willing to wait for new deliveries without going to competitors. And we believe that this is the highest degree of customer loyalty.
You should not forget that loyal customers are the source of your regular income and prosperity. But it is also a lifeline in difficult times for business.
To finally convince yourself of the importance to build customer loyalty, we suggest considering the following reasons:
- The conversion rate rises to 60-70%.
- Trust in the business inspires loyal customers to spend more money on your products.
- From the previous paragraph, it logically follows that your profit is growing. By trying to increase your customer retention rate by at least 5%, you can expect to increase revenue by 20-90%.
- As we said above, to find a new buyer, you will have to spend more resources and time than to maintain the loyalty of existing ones.
- Long-term planning of financial distribution and marketing campaigns becomes more precise.
- You have a stable income because regular customers make regular purchases, especially on holidays, weekends, or other days characteristic of your business.
6 critical tips to build customer loyalty
Now it’s time to move from words to actions, so we’ve prepared some tips for you to help build customer confidence in your brand.
1. Engage more communication channels
In an era of digitalization and the heightened importance of social media, a company must make the most of every source to connect with customers. Regularly use SMS messages, email newsletters, and posting on your pages on Facebook, Instagram and other groups. Also, don’t forget about your website, which is the face of your brand.
Maintaining constant contact with your audience will help you keep them up to date with all the latest news and always stay in sight.
2. Implement loyalty programs
Rewarding loyal customers through a loyalty program is the best way for a company to show its customers that they are valuable to them. You can use scoring systems, various punched cards, or credit cards. The main objective of this undertaking for the company is to increase consumer confidence in its brand and encourage them to spend more money.
The most common practice is to award bonuses for every purchase made, as Starbucks has done. Upon reaching a specific amount of points, a person can make a free purchase. Of course, this approach is hugely motivating, so in no case should you neglect it.
3. Encourage customer feedback and use it consistently in your growth strategy
The most obvious but no less effective way to increase loyalty is to collect and analyze customer feedback and build different development strategies based on them. This includes user messages, email responses, survey results, and telephone conversations.
4. Know your strengths and use them skillfully
Any successful company’s hallmark lies in its skillful and full use of its strengths and hiding weaknesses. To interest the audience, you should show the uniqueness of your product. Stay true to your brand and look for all possible ways to promote and improve your strengths.
5. Do not lose relevance and value for customers
Compliance with the requirements of the modern market, the ability to keep up with the times, and the timely introduction of new technologies and developments play an essential role for buyers. After all, this also applies to adapting products to changing user needs. Therefore, businesses should communicate openly and honestly to the audience about the changes that are taking place to maintain a positive mood for their customers.
6. Have your numbers on hand and track them regularly
All of the above steps will not make sense if you do not track the dynamics of changes in key development indicators. Regularly monitoring and responding to changes can optimize your existing plan and work more efficiently.
We recommend considering the following metrics:
- customer lifetime value;
- dependence of income on the level of loyalty;
- customer satisfaction level;
- comparing income from regular customers and the rest for a week, month, or year.
In Summary
More businesses realize the importance of retaining and attracting customers and decide to build customer loyalty. This helps not only to keep as many current customers as possible but also to attract the attention of new ones. But for all this to bring accurate results, implementing specialized platforms and tools is necessary.
And our company RFMcube offers such a solution. With our help, you can easily segment your audience in real-time and automate many marketing tasks. In addition, you can use all the information received in other applications.
By subscribing to RFMcube, you will be able to spend your investments faster and wiser, allowing you to create a promising marketing strategy and increase income.