Increasing customer loyalty

We can all agree that finding new customers can be very tough, time consuming and at times costly. Therefore, retaining customers is arguably even more important.

Whether your business sells online, relies on physical visitation or offers a service; the pillars of creating a culture of customer loyalty and repeat business remain the same.

As marketing consultants, we look at customer habits to see at which point of the customer journey improvements can be made to ensure their experience has been enjoyable, easy and memorable. This will in turn keep you at the forefront of your customers minds the next time they are in the market for the product or services you provide.

Let’s take a look at just some of the areas to concentrate on when trying to increase customer loyalty.

· Making your product or service easy as possible to purchase – lets for the minuet assume your digital marketing and or marketing campaigns are on point and potential customers have already found your website. From here we want to make sure the purchasing decision is as easy as it can be, therefore we need to make sure the website ticks the following boxes: - Your USP’s are easily visible and your product or service descriptions are informative and concise. - From decision to purchase to completion there should be as minimal clicks as possible, all one smooth transaction where the customer hasn’t had to think or struggle to workout how to purchase. Make purchasing options simple and easy to find at all times on each page. Think about how easy Amazon make it to purchase no matter where you are on their website and how few clicks are involved to do so and try to replicate that mindset as best you can.

· A purchasing gift – We all enjoy getting something free thrown in when purchasing anything, therefore when someone purchases your products or services think what you could give away each time in way of a bounce back, to ensure customers return. This could be as simple as 15% off your next purchase. Then inform the customer of their offer at the point of sale, “when you purchase this product you can receive 15% off your next purchase” showing this message at the point of sale might be the added bonus that pushes hesitant customers over the line and will help to ensure they come back in the future.

· Thank you – Every sale should be followed up with a thank you email, with confirmation of their bounce back offer. If your company sends products, I would also suggest adding the offer in with their purchase, which could be redeemed through a QR code. The same goes for any brick-and-mortar business when presenting customers with their receipt include your bounce back offer. This helps to make the customer feel valued and not just another person who passes through. Therefore, increasing the chance of them coming back to where they are appreciated.

· Surprise and delight – All good digital marketing consultants will tell you collecting customer email address is vital to help build your database. This will increase the number of customers who can receive your email marketing. Ecomms shouldn’t just be there for you to publish info about your business or new products the customer should also benefit from these comms, which would make gathering email addresses easier in the first place as well. Every couple of months why not send out discount vouchers/codes, these could have a limited time to claim to make sure you are not giving away too much for too long. Again this helps to make the customers feel appreciated and will keep them engaged with your comms and social media marketing.

· A charitable donation – Working with a local charity can benefit everyone, not only will you be helping a worthwhile cause it also helps to build relations with your local client base. Customers are more likely to spend their money with you over a potential competitor if they know its also going towards a good cause. Look at a viable % off the sale price going to charity or an amount of your monthly profits, this will not only help those in need but also gives you great content which can benefit both you and the charity.

Building strong customer loyalty can help you through tough times and give you the best marketing tool possible, which is positive word of mouth. Especially in these digital marketing times, a positive review of your business can be the most powerful tool. Potential customers will research business’s across multiple mediums and coming across positive feedback from like minded individuals or their peers is likely to be the final confirmation they seek to purchase from a particular business.