Customer loyalty is the constructive, positive relationship between a customer and a business or brand. It is not only what prompts existing customers to choose your company over a competitor, it is what makes your customers make repeat purchases.
Simply put, what separates a customer coming to you to make a one-time purchase and a customer who comes back to you for repeated purchases, potentially for the rest of his or her life, is customer loyalty.
Studies show that customers who are loyal to a company or brand spend nearly 70% more on products and services than new customers. That’s like saying that a loyal customer is 0.7X more than a new customer!
Talking about new and old customers, studies also show that it is 5X easier to retain an existing customer than acquire a new one. Going by the Pareto Principle, even if your most loyal customers make up only 20% of your customer base, they can contribute up to 80% of your revenue! Numbers, as they say, are hard to ignore.
10 Ways to Gain Customer Loyalty
When it comes to business, there are many questions you may have. One of them is likely to be: “What’s the most obvious sign that my business is doing well?” The answer for this is pretty simple: Your business is doing well when more and more of your customers are coming back to you again and again – to transact.
If you’re wondering how to make your customers come back to you again and again, read on.
Here are 10 ways to gain customer loyalty for your business:
- Quality Products
- Focus on Benefits
- Having a Mission & Ethos
- Customer Experience
- Be Authentic
- Be Transparent
- Be Consistent
- Reward Loyalty
- Make Your Customer be Seen & Heard
- Build a Community
Quality Products
Your product / your service, is your business. Period. If your product or service is similar to the one that’s already there, you may probably manage to survive. But if it is qualitatively better than the ones already out there, you thrive!
That you need to have a quality product is the most basic of the basics. And that’s fine. But think about it. From your customers’ point of view, what they are looking for from your product is (a relatively) better value when compared to the other options they have.
From that perspective, the onus is on you to make the best product that you possibly can. And if it’s a premium priced product, well, you better make it great! Because when your customers are paying a premium, they expect it to be nothing less than awesome!
Focus on Benefits
One of the critical things you need to do is to have focus on the problem you’re solving for your customer. The focus should be nothing less than clear, as a crystal! What is even more important, is that you should ensure they’re getting the benefits that they need to, because that’s what they actually paid for. This is how you gain your customers’ loyalty.
When you make it a point to focus on the benefits the way they need to, your customers get to enjoy two kinds of benefits, of which one is relatively more important than the other:
Functional Benefits
This refers to the performance of your products or services. Simply put, this is all about whether or not what you claimed your products or services can perform, is actually reflecting when they are consuming/using it. And what comes next is the more important one.
Emotional Benefits
Emotional benefits is about how your product or service actually makes your customer feel. It is the emotional payoff your customers benefit from by using your brand. It is how you make them feel when they interact with your brand, which is what builds brand loyalty. It’s that simple.
No matter what you intend to solve, be it status, safety, or utility, you need to ensure that they get to enjoy the emotional payoff, and accordingly frame your communication and marketing.
Having a Mission & Ethos
A business just can’t be all about selling something and making money out of it. It needs to have a higher calling.
Simply put, your business should be more than the products and services that you sell. You should have a deeper reason for your business to exist, and that reason should be integrated into your brand strategy.
Ideally, it should be memorized by every person in your company – be it 20, 200 or 2000 employees. It should get demonstrated in every action that you take on behalf of your company, and in every action your entire team performs. And that’s where Mission Statement gains significance.
If you haven’t developed a mission statement for your business, we can help you developing one. Always remember that if your mission isn’t clearly defined, and is not integrated into your company’s ethos, the very question of developing customer loyalty doesn’t arise.
Customer Experience
As you definitely should already be knowing, providing a very good customer experience (if not a great one) is by far the most fundamental yet important essentials if you want to gain customer loyalty.
We’re not talking about their experience as a customer when they’re making a purchase. We’re talking about their experience every single time when they come to you for any follow-up, repairs, or any challenge that they face.
We’re talking about them getting to experience an engagement with you that is truly personal and authentic. And that’s the reason why customer loyalty takes time to gain. It’s like any true relationship that you can think of. It takes a long-term commitment!
Be Authentic
If there is one great challenge about the digital space, it is the challenge as regards figuring out who is real and especially who is not. That’s why you see the word ‘authentic’ and ‘authenticity’ being thrown around across the digital world – social media in particular.
Let’s face it. It’s easy for people to show up on the internet space looking or projecting themselves like someone, whereas they’re actually anything but what we get to see them as. And thanks to AI (Artificial Intelligence), this has only got even more challenging.
And that’s exactly why more and more people are wanting to do business with people who they can actually see through as authentic, kind of one among them and a ‘real’ person. Not just a ‘projection’. Remember: People want to do business with people. Not a brand.
So the more you come out as your real self, as your authentic self, more will people relate to you, and most of all – trust you! The more you’re honest about your imperfections and talk about what you’re actually doing to walk towards perfection, more will you gain in terms of customer loyalty.
Be Authentic
If there is one great challenge about the digital space, it is the challenge as regards figuring out who is real and especially who is not. That’s why you see the word ‘authentic’ and ‘authenticity’ being thrown around across the digital world – social media in particular.
Let’s face it. It’s easy for people to show up on the internet space looking or projecting themselves like someone, whereas they’re actually anything but what we get to see them as. And thanks to AI (Artificial Intelligence), this has only got even more challenging.
And that’s exactly why more and more people are wanting to do business with people who they can actually see through as authentic, kind of one among them and a ‘real’ person. Not just a ‘projection’. Remember: People want to do business with people. Not a brand.
So the more you come out as your real self, as your authentic self, more will people relate to you, and most of all – trust you! The more you’re honest about your imperfections and talk about what you’re actually doing to walk towards perfection, more will you gain in terms of customer loyalty.
Be Consistent
The cornerstone of virtually everything that has to do with brand loyalty and customer loyalty, has to do with consistency: consistency across visual branding, and in your brand communication – be it written or verbal.
Needless to mention, consistency also has to (obviously) do with the quality of your product or service, and its delivery. This can be in the form of consistent customer experiences, and consistent customer support every time a customer comes to you.
When it comes to building trust and loyalty, nothing beats consistency. Why, because setting expectations is something all businesses do with their marketing endeavours. But meeting the expectations that has been set is what separates the good companies from the mediocre ones!
Reward Loyalty
As discussed earlier, customer loyalty is what makes your customers make repeat purchases from you. Having said, it is also very important that you let them know that you appreciate it and that you also value it.
You can appreciate them by providing them with discounts or even free products (on satisfying certain conditions). You may also choose to upgrade them similar to how banks, hotels and airlines do.
One of the most effective ways to reward loyalty is by creating loyalty programs. This way, you can make them feel appreciated, and know that you value them for the business they bring for you.
What makes loyalty programs special, is that they have a tendency to make your customers feel special compared to other customers, therefore making them think about your brand more often.
Make Your Customer be Seen & Heard
Every brand that has a strong customer loyalty do whatever it takes to celebrate their customers, and they do this by recognising them. There’s no better way to recognize them than, by giving them a platform to put their voice out into the world.
One of the ways you can do this is by featuring them in your ads. In fact, there are brands who let their customers create ads for them! They highlight their customers’ testimonials online, especially video testimonials, and they follow it up/amplify it by sharing them in other forms like text, reels, etc.
Great brands take their customers’ voice seriously and involve them to make their products better. What’s more? They also involve them to create a new product or service. If you believe you’re a great brand, you can try them too.
Build a Community
People like sharing what they like. It’s in human nature to share our thoughts and experience with people who we value and are close to us. Case in point: think of the article, picture or a video you’d shared to someone recently. May be it was this very morning.
People go through a ‘high’ when they get a nice deal before anybody else, which is why they want to share it with everyone else. Most of all, people crave to be part of a community, kind of a tribe of like-minded people.
So create a space for your loyal customers and facilitate them to be around other loyal customers of your brand. This is how you grow your customer loyalty exponentially, solidify your brand perception, and increase your fan base.
You can do this by starting a group on any social media platform, your website, or better still – your own app; and engage with them thoughtfully and consistently.
And make sure that you don’t try to control the conversation, as they can easily see through that kind of strong-arming and can get put off very easily. All you need to do is just engage, provide value, and most of all, facilitate them to interact with each other.