Building a customer base isn’t easy, but keeping them is even harder. If consumers think they’ll get a better deal by going somewhere else, they will. This decision leaves you to figure out how to make a profit. That’s why so many brands learn how to effectively build customer loyalty.
Profitable companies know that if they can convince people that they’re the best option, folks will stick with them long-term and won’t even look elsewhere.
The question, of course, is how to achieve this. You’d love for customers to stick around, but making it happen is a challenge.
Let’s take a look at some of the strategies you can use to build customer loyalty and make people fall in love with your brand.
1. Tell A Relatable Story
While advertising the quality of your products is important, it’s nothing compared to telling a relatable story. Explain to them how your business is different from everyone else’s. Or share a fellow customer testimonial. It’ll work every time!
2. Offer Freebies
You already offer your customers your products and services. But often, it’s worth going beyond this and providing them with something more. Perhaps this is a freebie, or maybe it’s an exclusive experience.
Giving something away for free is often more powerful than selling. Initially, you lose money, but it builds an emotional connection with individuals. If you give them something, there’s an expectation that they will provide you with value in return.
Companies give away things like t-shirts, USB drives, keyrings, and hats because they know that it will give people a positive impression of their brand.
3. Connect With Customers Personally
While customers will often be willing to interact with your brand as an entity, giving them ways to connect with you personally is powerful. When they get to know people in a business, it ceases to be a faceless organization and becomes much more.
4. Create A Loyalty Program
Most customers want to be rewarded for their loyalty. After all, if they continually spend money with you, you should give them something in return.
Smart business owners set up a loyalty program to encourage existing customers to stick with them. Coffee shops do this, for instance, by creating punch cards that give every 10th cup for free. Clothing stores often have loyalty cards that allow customers to build up points and get free goodies.
The structure of your loyalty program depends on your business model. Ideally, you want a setup that rewards customers for sticking with you over time and when they spend more money.
5. Provide Perks Regularly
Purposefully rewarding customer loyalty is one of the cheapest ways to get somebody to come back to your brand time and time again. You can make the reward financial, but there are other tools at your disposal as a business owner.
For instance, if you have a particularly dependable customer, you can provide them with things like immediate seating, special treatment, or the option to skip the line. Obviously, you’ll want to do this in a way that avoids irritating your other customers, but it’s well worth it if it means hanging onto the most valuable people.
6. Improve Your Customer Service
Customer service is always a balancing act. On the one hand, you need to be able to deal with customer complaints when they arise. But on the other, you don’t want to spend all your money on reps and have to raise your prices.
Data suggest that customers value customer service interactions highly. Around half of all consumers say that they would leave a brand for another if they weren’t able to get in touch with a rep.
Customer service, however, isn’t necessarily money down the drain. In fact, it’s often a sales opportunity and a chance to prove to customers that you offer a great service.
Imagine, for instance, that a customer isn’t happy with the current level of service they’re receiving. Superficially, it seems like a bad thing. But if you can upsell them onto a product that actually meets their needs, then it could be a big positive for your business.
7. Don’t Over-rely On Technology
Chatbots are becoming more popular as artificial intelligence becomes more sophisticated. But they’re a long way from being perfect. Today’s devices can answer FAQs, but they can’t provide in-depth assistance or respond sensitively to unique customer requirements.
For that reason, a lot of top brands still rely heavily on real people for their customer service interactions. That’s because the vast majority of customers would much prefer to speak with a human online instead of a machine. Robots still aren’t quite good enough, unfortunately.
8. Always Smile
Lastly, most customers feel loyal to companies that welcome them with a smile. It might seem a little fake sometimes, but there’s good science behind it. Plus, it makes people feel welcome when they come to your store or premises. Don’t underestimate its importance.
The post 8 Proven Ways To Build Strong Customer Loyalty appeared first on Miss Millennia Magazine.
from Miss Millennia Magazine
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