Customer loyalty is an ongoing positive relationship between a customer and a business. To boost customer loyalty, you need adequate resources and skills.It drives repeat purchases and also prompts existing customers to choose your company over a competitor’s offering similar benefits.
In businesses such as e-commerce platforms that sells softwares, hosting companies, webinars software, website builders, seo software tools among others require customers’ loyalty as a priority.It’s a measurement of a customer’s willingness to continue engaging in and purchasing your product or service.
Customer loyalty is important for improving the lifetime value of current customers as well as bringing in new customers. It works on the principle that believes that happy customers can recommend your products or services to others. All these depend on customer satisfaction level. Gauging customer satisfaction levels can come from on-page star ratings and reviews, surveys, and customer interviews.
Terms used to gauge customer loyalty:
Churn rate-this is the percentage of customers that cancel your product or service and do not renew the subscription.
Customer lifeline value-this tells you how valuable a customer is to your business based on the entire relationship with you.
Repeat purchase rate-also known as customer retention or pre-order rate is the percentage of customers that flock back to purchase again after the initial purchase.
Affiliate purchase-this referees to the business relationships between companies and other businesses or people to earn a commission after engaging in promotional activities together. Under this we have;
*Affiliate links-these are links to the business site that can be placed on the affiliate’s page to drive traffic from one site to the other.
*Exclusive coupons-under this program, the affiliates will be given a coupon code or discount that’s exclusive to the name or company therein. It acts as a referral and the affiliate earns a commission when a purchase is made.
*Social sharing-this happens when an affiliate posts about the business’s product or service and tags them in it. This can drive interest and traffic to the business site and the commission can be tracked down based on the interactions with the posts.
How to achieve customer loyalty.
Know your customers-you are encouraged and expected to treat your customer as a person. You can do this by using several strategies like sending a personalised birthday message to a seasoned customer and keeping your customers updated on any business news before it hits the press.
Play to your strengths and weaknesses– you need to establish what keeps you going as a unique brand and focus on it so that your customers can associate you with your strengths. You also need to identify your weaknesses and work on them to show the customers that you care about their satisfaction.
Store customers’ data-storing customer’s data is important and helps the coordination between the business and the clients. For example, if a client is ordering a product, if you have their location in your database then it saves the time of trying to identify the location of the client for shipping services. This encourages the customer to make frequent purchases from your business.
Encourage consumer business customers to invest in businesses that value their opinions and insights. Implement customer feedback and encourage them to give their opinions and showcase it to them as proof of your dedication.
Engage customers on social media-it’s important to have an active business profile on various social media platforms that encourages interaction between you and your customers so that you can identify areas that need molding to ensure that your business serves the interests of the customers.
How to build customer loyalty.
1.Improve your customer experience.
Customer service matters a lot and customers remember very well if they are treated badly or if they are treated well when they engage sellers. They even discuss this with family and friends.
It’s therefore imperative that you go beyond and above to ensure that your customers are treated royally and that all their needs are catered for. They need to be given full attention and their experience should be memorable in a positive way to enhance their loyalty.
2.Determine the best communication channels.
Frequent communication with your customers keeps you fresh in the minds of customers and makes you pass along important information to your customers.
Types of communication channels.
The ability to easily communicate builds the trust and loyalty of the customers:
*Email– this channel is helpful for specific customers that aren’t as present on social media as on email. This ensures that all the customers are contacted through their preferred channels.
*Social media-social media has taken the route as the most widely used means of communication and it would therefore seem absurd if a business does not contact its customers through several platforms of social media.
Contacting customers through platforms such as YouTube, Facebook and Instagram solidifies your presence in the lives of the customers who are always thronging social media platforms to get updated on what is trending and it can also be an intrusive means in the sense that it targets those who are on the social media platforms for other divergent reasons but get to encounter the voice of your business.
*Webchat-this platform allows for a business to program a chatbox feature that helps to answer frequently asked questions by customers and hence direct the customer to helpful resources. This has a double advantage in the sense that it answers the frequently asked questions while at the same time helping by giving the customer service ample time to deal with more in-depth issues that affect the business.
*Phone calls-real human voice matters a lot. While automated phone calls may save money, highly trained customer service representatives come in handy a great deal when dealing with customers. The real human voice builds loyalty through its deep connection with the customers and this ultimately improves the perception that the customer has about the business.
3.Develop a rewards program
Giving extra perks to your most dependable customers helps build loyalty and boosts the trust they have in you as a business entity. A few common reward schemes include the following:
*Point program-in this program, each purchase a customer does earn points. The accumulated points can be transferred to a reward of sorts or a special offering. This helps keep the customer glued to that specific business entity and purchase its products to accumulate the points.
*Spend program-this particular program focuses on the amount of money a customer spends on each transaction. It is designed in a way that rewards the customer according to how they spend. The more they spend, the more rewards they accumulate. This program boosts customer loyalty as well as reduces the churn rates.
*Tiered program-this program works based on a customer’s spending habits. There are different levels of rewards and earnings and the awarding depends on the way they spend on your products.
*Exclusive VIP program-this is a program that encourages customers to enroll as members. They do this by paying a subscription fee either annually or monthly and are as such entitled to some favors like special discounts or offers from the business. This encourages customers to stick with the business and also acts as an incentive for other customers to strive to reach that membership status.
4.Offer a head-start on rewards.
This initiative of boosting customer loyalty works on the principle of incentives. This is achieved by allowing customers to get a head-start on any offers.
It can be a free offer before they purchase a product or a free trial before they commit to a service offered by the business. This helps to win the trust of the customers and they feel that their interests are put first by the business.
5.Seek out customer feedback
All customers like to see their views being accommodated for them to feel they are part of the business as buyers. This can best be demonstrated by seeking the feedback of the customers on the products or services offered.
This is done by sending out surveys, asking questions on phone calls, and keeping track of your ratings. This procedure helps seek out customer feedback helps solidify the position of the customers at the business and therefore builds customer loyalty.
How to seek customer feedback.
Online reviews and comments or tags on social channels or any other online forums are great places to respond to both positive and negative customer feedback.
By responding to both applause and criticism, it shows that you take criticism positively and seriously and that you are devoted to serving the interests of the customers.
Sometimes you can take on the negative responses in a private channel. After engaging the client privately, you can showcase positive feedback.
You can even ask to conduct a follow-up interview or any other form of engagement to get more out of the great review. You can also arrange a reward scheme for customers who offer a positive contribution.
6.Consider different payment plans.
The different payment plans come in different ways. It can help businesses that normally come at an optimal level during a certain period.
Take, for instance, the wedding business. Given that most of the wedding activities take place during the summer, the businesses that deal in wedding outfits are normally dormant during the winter.
So a payment plan can be enacted to enable the customers to be paying in bits during the winter so that by the time the summer activities arrive, they don’t feel overwhelmed to pay all at once.
This helps the business to remain active throughout while at the same time helping the customers to remain loyal and also be able to manage the payments in bits. So the business manages to keep afloat even during a period when its business is at off-peak and it also manages to boost customer loyalty.
Aside from this scheme, you can also consider other payment options that are conversant with the customers. These include options such as PayPal or Apple Pay which allows customers to conveniently purchase your products or services electronically and seamlessly at times.
7.Maintain voice tone and language at every touch point.
The reception that a customer gets when they make the first contact with the business personnel helps to boost customer loyalty.
A friendly greeting has very important consequences. There is a need for positive language, tone, and visuals throughout the interactions between the customer and the service providers right from the first contact to the purchase point.
Maintaining a consistent voice and tone throughout your company communication is important to keep your brand strong and keep the experience of the customer solid in a positive way.
You should make sure to use specific language and offering within your internal communication to avoid conflicting information that could confuse potential customers. There should be uniformity in communication at all levels of the pyramid.
8.Give customers a reason to be loyal.
Customers’ experience should be looked at as more than just using the product but also I’m terms of how they feel throughout the entire interaction with your business whenever you want to boost customer loyalty.
Reflect and improve the way you treat potential customers for the sake of their memorable experience and your business because what the customers convey to their family and friends as their experience determines how other people will perceive your business.
Strive to make the experience of purchasing your product or service a memorable one so that you can boost customer loyalty.
To Sum up:
To boost customer loyalty is the first thing one should consider when dong an e-commerce business or any other physical business.
Ensuring a positive and memorable experience for your customers as well as leaving a good impression help in making the customer happy. This, in turn, helps spread positive reviews for your company and ultimately creates and strengthens the customer loyalty.
