Repeat customers not only buy more, but they also often serve as unofficial brand ambassadors. Here are ten ways to help you get new customers to become loyal, repeat customers.

1. Understand What Your Customers Want

If you want to convince your customers to give you their loyalty, you’re going to need to understand what they want, so you can give it to them. Do they care more about performance than price? Or is cutting costs more important? Are they looking for certain extra features? To find out, you need to conduct market research on your target demographic. There are a few ways you can go about it. You can give your customers a short survey when they buy something, with a small bonus for filling it out. You can hold focus groups to do more in-depth research. You could also pay for a survey company to do it for you. You can be as involved or uninvolved as you like.

2. Make Purchases Easy and Convenient

If you want first-time buyers to become repeat customers, you need to make their first purchase easy and convenient. As customers become increasingly tech-savvy, businesses must ensure that their customers have the best purchasing experience possible. The convenience of being able to purchase items from the comfort of one’s own home is an integral part of a successful purchasing process. Customers today expect streamlined purchases with intuitive interfaces and payment security measures. Purchasers want to know that their information is secure and buyers need access to customer service at any time. Companies must make sure customers feel confident in their buying decision by making purchases as easy and convenient as possible.

3. Treat Your Employees Well

If you want your customers to keep coming back, you need to treat your employees well. They are the ones who determine if your customers have a pleasant, fun experience or a difficult, irritating one. Showing appreciation for customer service employees will motivate them to go the extra mile for customers and boost customer satisfaction. Simple gestures like recognizing customer care staff in team meetings or giving rewards for exemplary performance can make a huge difference on employee morale and productivity. Investing time into customer service staff trainings is also invaluable to allowing employees to increase their skills and provide higher quality customer experiences. Taking these small steps can have a big impact, creating happier customer care employees who are willing to put in the work that customers need, making both your staff and customer experience better.

4. Provide a Customer Service App

A customer service app is a great tool for businesses of all sizes. Not only does it make customer interactions more efficient, but it can also ensure customer satisfaction. A customer service app allows customers to get their questions answered quickly and accurately, and they no longer have to wait on hold or navigate confusing customer service menus when they need assistance.  Other features include things like ticket notifications, customer management systems, customer tracking capabilities, customer feedback surveys and reporting tools. If companies want to create a custom cross-platform app that will help them manage the customer experience, they can hire Flutter developers: https://doit.software/blog/hire-flutter-developers. In today’s digital age, a customer service app is an invaluable asset for businesses looking to improve their customer service offerings.

5. Make Your Business Website Easy to Use

Having a well-functioning website is essential for any business in today’s digital world. It can make customer service easier, help to build customer relationships, and even boost sales. To ensure your business website is easy to use, you should focus on having a well-organized layout, clear navigation menus, and simple contact forms. Additionally, keeping content minimal and avoiding any long or wordy explanations can also help to increase customer engagement. With these steps you can ensure your business website is user friendly and create a great customer experience.

6. Reward Customer Loyalty

People like being recognized and appreciated. So, when you show customers that you truly value their repeat custom, they’ll be much more likely to continue giving it to you. Try instituting a customer reward program, with discounts available after repeat purchases. Give the occasional free product or service to your long-term customers. If your business is a small one, get to know all of your repeat customers’ names. Do everything you can to make your loyal customers feel valued and appreciated.

7. Resolve Problems Quickly

From time to time, your customers are going to have problems with your business. How you handle these problems will have a huge impact on whether those customers will ever come back. So, when you find out about a customer complaint, you need to make fixing it a top priority. In fact, no matter how busy you are, no matter how long it will actually take to fix the problem, you need to at least issue an initial response within 24 hours. And to make sure that happens, you need to check your business website and review sites like Yelp on a daily basis.

8. Make It Easy for Customers to Shop with You Again

It’s important to make it easy for first-time buyers to shop with you again in the future. One way to do this is to save their information so they don’t have to enter it every time they make a purchase. You can also offer guest checkout options, so they don’t have to create an account if they don’t want to.

9. Build a Community Around Your Brand

Building a strong customer community around your brand is an important part of maintaining customer loyalty. Creating strategies to foster customer interaction and engagement with your brand helps create a personal connection between customers and your product or service. Utilizing customer service experiences to collect customer feedback, generate conversations, host contests and activities that promote customer involvement can all be used to build a cohesive customer community around your brand. This will also help build a positive reputation of your brand as people come together, share experiences, and form relationships around the shared interest in your company or product. In the long run, having a loyal customer community will ultimately increase customer retention to ensure long-term success of your brand.

10. Stay in Touch with Your Customers

It’s important to stay in touch with your customers even after they’ve made their initial purchase. It helps to build customer loyalty, deepen customer relationships, and gain insights into customer needs. To stay connected with your customers, use email newsletters to send out announcements or events related to your business. You can even use mailers and rewards programs by sending physical mailers with discounts or coupons. With the right strategies, you can easily keep in touch with your customers and build long-term relationships.

Final Thoughts

Customer loyalty will either make or break your business. By following these tips, you can develop the kind of customer loyalty that will make it instead of breaking it.

If you want to run a successful business and experience revenue growth, it’s not enough to simply bring in the customers. To achieve these goals, you also need to take care of retaining these customers.

It takes a lot to earn your client’s trust and loyalty, so once you bring them into your company’s ecosystem, the last thing you want is to see all your efforts go to waste.

Fortunately, there are plenty of proven ways that help improve the relationship between the business and the customers and maintain steady retention. Some entrepreneurs emphasize the clients’ first experience with the brand, so they feel as encouraged to come back as possible. Others rely on customer feedback, decide to run newsletters, or invest their time in rewarding loyalty.

It’s as easy as it sounds –  all you need is to create your own objectives and focus on achieving them. If you want to learn more about how to improve customer loyalty and retention and make your business even more successful, continue reading below.

Send Out Surveys

One way to learn about your customers is to ask for feedback using surveys. The surveys should be short and simple to fill out so that they don’t take too much time or effort from the client’s side, but they should still provide valuable information that can be used to improve your business offerings. By asking for feedback from clients once in a while, you can make sure that they’re happy with their purchase and continue coming back to your company.

Additionally, there are plenty of useful tools out there that might come in handy and make collecting feedback even easier than before. For example, paying attention to the reviews should become an integral part of the way you’re running your business. Because keeping track of them might be overwhelming, you might consider visiting websites like getwave.com and find out more about how you can work on improving customer interaction.

Build Trust

The most important element in building long-term relationships with your clients is being consistent, whether you fulfill their needs or use the feedback to make improvements. It’s not enough to simply state your business’s values on your website if you don’t live by them in real life. For instance, if you promise to provide all of your customers with the best products and services possible, you need to follow through with this promise.

Trust is at the core of every good relationship. The more trust you build with your clients, the better the relationship becomes. You can start by providing information about your business. Be transparent in your communication with clients, explain what is going on when there are changes, be honest and friendly in your communication, and let people know that you care about them.

It’s also essential to learn from your clients. Thanks to open communication and collaboration, you can learn a lot and improve your own business. For example, you can learn more about their needs and expectations and use the feedback to improve your business offerings.

Invest in Customer Rewards and Recognition

There are plenty of ways for businesses to reward their customers and recognize their loyalty. Some companies choose to give away prizes for making referrals or engaging in social media activities, while others offer special discounts or coupons. However, if you want to make a lasting impression on your customers, you have to invest in a thoughtful rewards program. This program will help you to not only retain customers but also attract new ones.

Contests and giveaways are excellent ways to engage your customers while promoting your brand. Create online surveys, trivia questions, raffles, or any other type of contest where people can win something in exchange for an entry. Start small with simple contests but remember that bigger events might bring more attention to your brand, so they’re worth considering in the future.

Don’t Forget About Referrals

The easiest way to grow your business is through referrals from existing clients. If someone has been satisfied with your service, they may want to help by spreading the word about your brand and recommending you to other people who might need your products and services.

To encourage referrals, you need to do two things: firstly, provide fantastic service so people will want to recommend your business, and secondly, make it easy for them to refer other people to your business by offering rewards. For example, you can offer a free trial period for every customer who refers someone else to your company.

Conclusion

As we mentioned earlier, trust is the core of every healthy relationship between a business and its customers, so even if you manage to achieve all of these goals, it won’t be enough unless you earn the trust of your customers. If you can make your clients trust you, you’ll have no shortage of loyal customers who will keep coming back for more.

But it is not as difficult to achieve as you might think. All you need to do is to focus on the right things and make sure that you’re constantly working on improving your business, as well as the relationships between your company and your customers. Are you ready to continue growing your business?

Many businesses focus their marketing efforts on acquiring new customers. But while customer acquisition is important, customer retention is even more important.

Repeat customers will be responsible for most of your profits and, as such, it’s especially important to take steps to increase customer loyalty for your business.

Having a high level of customer loyalty won’t just boost your sales and enhance your profits. It also strengthens your brand reputation and allows for consistent and sustainable growth. Therefore, you’ll want to focus on strategies that keep your customers satisfied and ensure they’ll return to your business. Here are 8 of the best strategies to increase customer loyalty for your business.

1. Offer An Excellent Customer Experience

First and foremost, you must provide an excellent experience for every customer you serve. If your customer has an exemplary experience with your business, they’ll be much more likely to come back. Not only that, but they’ll also be more likely to give your business a good review and recommend it to their friends.

In contrast, a single bad experience can cause you to lose a customer for life. If a customer has an unsatisfying experience with your business, they’ll be much more likely to head to your competitors in the future. As such, you should do what you can to apologize and compensate customers if your business slips up and leaves them feeling disappointed.

2. Provide Rapid Customer Support

Customer support is also essential if you want to retain a strong base of loyal customers. Many customers want to ask questions before they buy something from you. What’s more, some will have complaints and won’t want to wait for a response. As such, you should always offer rapid customer support.

Many businesses now use an omnichannel customer service platform to offer seamless support to customers by email, live chat, or any other popular channels of communication from a single application. You can also use social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter to offer quick and efficient customer support. It’s also important to have customer service representatives in store if you’re running a physical store.

3. Reward Your Customers For Their Loyalty

One of the most effective ways to enhance customer loyalty for your business is to reward your customers for their loyalty. People will be much more likely to return to your business and buy from you more often if they’re rewarded for doing so. This is why so many successful businesses now offer customer reward programs.

There are many ways to reward your customers. For instance, you might want to offer points for every purchase that they can eventually trade in for rewards. You could also offer special discounts for customers who have signed up for your customer rewards program. You might even want to send coupon codes to loyal customers to encourage them to buy from you again.

4. Connect With Customers Via Social Media

Every business should make use of social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn. Not only are these platforms excellent for promoting your business and acquiring new customers, but they can also help you interact with your customers directly and improve customer loyalty.

Many brands improve their customer loyalty by building a strong following of customers on their social media channels. This allows you to regularly send out exciting content and enticing content to customers. You can also interact with customers directly, allowing you to offer customer support and answer any questions quickly.

5. Use Email Marketing To Contact Your Customers

Email marketing is another excellent way to keep in touch with your customers and regularly send them promotional content to keep your brand fresh in their minds. There are many effective email marketing strategies you can use. For instance, you can send emails linking them to product promotions, flash sales, and even content from your website.

Another perk of email marketing is that you can use email marketing software to personalize each email. Customers will be much more likely to open an email if it addresses them by name. You might even want to send customers a discount voucher on their birthdays. This will make them feel valued while also encouraging them to buy something from you.

6. Start A Customer Referral Program

Starting a referral program is one of the best ways to acquire new customers while simultaneously improving your customer retention rate. You can use referral marketing software to allow your customers to recommend your business to their friends and get rewarded for it.

Usually, referral marketing programs work by allowing customers to send a link to their friends and associates via social media or email. Each person who signs up and makes a purchase after following their link will get a one-time discount, and the customer who refers them will also get a reward, such as a special discount. Not only will you gain a new customer, but your current customers will be happy with the rewards they gain.

7. Use Branded Packaging And Merchandise

Every business should have a strong brand name and logo. This will make you more recognizable in the eyes of consumers and can also help you enhance your brand loyalty and customer retention.

Using branded packaging such as bags and boxes with your logo will keep your brand fresh in customers’ minds and also enhance your brand visibility. What’s more, offering merchandise such as t-shirts and accessories with your brand logo can make customers feel more connected to your brand. This can do wonders for boosting customer loyalty over time.

8. Collect Customer Feedback And Listen To It

If you want to build a strong base of loyal customers, it’s important to listen to their needs. Even if you’re already offering them a great customer experience, you should do whatever you can to improve it for them.

Proactive chat utilizes the visitor’s present and historical activity on your site to determine what they may require and when they should be engaged for support or feedback. Numerous indications referred to as proactive chat triggers specify when the chat message should appear and the type of guidance or assistance that should be given.

Collecting customer feedback is one of the best ways to make your customers feel valued. You can gauge their concerns, find out what they want from your business, and improve based on their comments. Not only will this improve the experience you offer to customers, but customers will be impressed that your business continues to improve based on their needs and wants.

Every business should do what they can to continuously impress their customers and improve customer retention rates. These eight strategies can help all kinds of businesses build a strong base of loyal customers who will continue to return to your business and buy from you.

Customer intelligence (CI) is the process of understanding the specific needs of your customers and analyzing all the data you have on them to serve them better, driving customer satisfaction and loyalty.

Customer intelligence is an essential component of customer relationship management (CRM). When implemented effectively, it can provide valuable insight into customer behaviour and experience.

One example is when customers walk into a shop and leave without purchasing anything. These prospects/customers (or their visits) might not be available in a traditional CRM system because no sales transactions are recorded on the cash register. Although there was no transaction, CI can be used to determine why customers leave the store. This could be done by asking them or a store employee to complete a survey.

Customer Intelligence starts with reference data. This is basic information about the customer such as their geographical location.

The data is then supplemented by transaction data – reports on customer activity. This could include commercial information, such as order processing and purchase history. It also includes interactions with service representatives via phone or e-mail.

Agent data or customer satisfaction surveys can add a subjective dimension. A company can also use mystery shopping and competitor insight to gain a better understanding of their market position.

This data can be analyzed and placed in context with other information about industry conditions, competitors and general trends to gain information about customers’ current and future needs. It can also be used to predict their future behavior.

How to Gather Customer Intelligence

Text Analytics

Market research surveys and customer satisfaction are often analyzed via text analytics. These can be used for customer intelligence purposes to contact center notes, email, and other textual sources.

Speech analytics

Speech analytics is used to monitor phone conversations between customers and companies. It uses speech to text or phonetic analysis to locate keywords and phrases, classify calls types, and identify trends.

CRM Software

Customer relationship management software is software that helps to manage customer relationships. It can store data about the number, type, and category of prospects and customers.

Frontline data capture that may or may not be part of a CRM solution but is used by front-line agents to record subjective data about customer contacts such as the reason the customer picked up the phone.

Click tracking

Click tracking data is used to track the popularity and use of corporate websites. It can give clues about product interest and purchasing intention. A company might infer that a customer is interested to purchase a service if they spend time looking at specific products.

Customer intelligence allows for a deep understanding of how customers interact with companies and makes predictions about customer behavior. This information can be used to aid in more strategic and effective decision-making, driving customer satisfaction and creating customer loyalty.

Customer service expert John Tschohl outlines eleven key steps for successfully remembering and using your customers’ names to create memorable experiences, passion and loyalty.

Very few companies remember and use their customers’ names. Employees rarely, if ever, remember and consistently use the names and remember the faces of the customer they see most often, let alone the customer they see only occasionally. There is nothing more precious to a customer than their name. It is the highest level of customer service. In a year the typical customer can count on one hand the times an employee will use their name. Most companies and employees don’t care. Few realize the impact it makes on a customer.

This is a stealth approach to keeping customers and stealing customers from your competitors. It is laser surgery. It costs you nothing but the time to train your staff. It is a very effective way to create customer passion.

I can think of only three firms that are good at using my name. Delta Airlines, Amazon and Apple. All three are customer service role models. Why not join their ranks.

Every organization that wants to be a service leader should stress the importance and benefits of remembering customers and includes strategies to help employees do so. “When someone calls you by name, whether you realize it or not, you form a bond with that person. “Not only is it a sign of respect, customers’ names make those customers to feel both welcome and important.”

The more valuable the customer the more important it is. Most companies have technology that has the customer’s name on it. So easy for an employee to say, “Mr. Charles, good afternoon. Thanks for calling. How can I be of help?

Why don’t we remember and use our customers’ names? There are three simple and easily surmountable obstacles that keep most employees from remembering and using the names of their customers. 1.Indifference 2. Fear 3. Lack of training.

Indifference: When customers enter our place of business in person or by phone, we don’t always think to greet them by name or to show that we remember them. Employees often think of their work as a job or grind that they must “get through,” they don’t invest themselves in the success of the company. Employees may not understand how their actions affect the “Big Picture” at their company.

Fear: This incudes fear of interacting with customers or fear of not pronouncing a name correctly. They see their customers as a necessary part of the job but would rather get through the day with a minimum of interaction. Ask customers to remind you how to pronounce their name. Customer appreciate any effort on your part to remember their names. This only works if you eventually remember the customer’s name and the proper pronunciation.

Lack of Training: Most employers and employees don’t understand the importance of using their customers name`s. This is a skill you can learn and master. All employees should be trained on why and how to remember the customer’s name.

It’s difficult for a company to differentiate itself with price, product, and quality. On the other hand, when you provide superior customer service, which includes remembering your customers and using their names, you set yourself and your organization apart from the competition and increase customer loyalty.

An employee whose income is based on tips could double their income with this strategy. Visualize if you went to a restaurant and tell the hostess you have a 7 PM dinner reservation for four under Nelson. The hostess says, Mr. Nelson so nice to have you back. Sidney will take all of you to your table.

Mr. Nelson my name is Sidney. I will be your server tonight. Would you like something to drink while you look at the menu?

What impression would your guests have? How much would you tip extra?

While most of us don’t have such exceptional memories, we do have at our disposal the tools we need to identify our customers. When a customer hands you her credit card, her name is on it. The same is true for membership cards and reservation forms. It simply is not acceptable to ignore that information.

11 Steps for Successfully Remembering and Using Names

1. Pay attention to what your customers say.
2. Avoid distractions. Focus on your customer.
3. Learn your customer’s name as soon as possible.
4. Use customers names early and often.
5. Engage your senses.
6. Connect information. Link new data to information you already have.
7. Get organized. Write things down.
8. Visualize. Go over the encounter in your mind. Try to remember every detail.
9. Rehearse. Refer to your notes and review what you learned.
10. Use affirmations. Tell yourself you have a great memory
11. Stay motivated. Stay positive.

Most people can easily remember faces but recognizing a face and attaching a name to it takes an entirely difference set of memory skills.

• You will never remember a name if you fail to notice it.
• Recognize and acknowledge customers’ names whether thy tell your or you learn it another way. Do not ignore the important information that’s right in front of you.
• When you first hear a customer’s name, repeat is back to him in conversation as soon as possible.
• Add the name to beginning or end of a greeting: “Tasha, how nice to meet you,” or “It was a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Gainer.”
• Associate the names with something the customers tell you about themselves.
• Write it down. Include the name, a phonetic spelling, any personal details and the subject of our encounter.

When you greet customers and clients by name, you are telling them they are important to you and your organization, And, when customers feel important, they are more likely to return and do business with you again. That repeat business can make the difference between failure and survival. Treat every customer like a King or Queen. Remember their face and name and you will create customer passion and loyalty.

About the Author

John Tschohl is a customer service strategist and is the founder and president of the Service Quality Institute. John has been described by USA Today, Time, and Entrepreneur as a ‘customer service guru’ and has written several highly acclaimed customer service books.

Winning loyal customers can be challenging when many ecommerce websites offer the same or similar products. However, studies have shown that engaged customers are likely to spend more than 50% more than new customers on each purchase.

The question is, though, how do you turn one-time visitors into loyal customers and brand advocates? Here are ten tips to help you get visitors to your ecommerce site to love your brand and become loyal customers.

1. Be Authentic

Consider what people will think when they first visit your ecommerce Store. Are visitors to your site going to be impressed by your integrity and honesty? Or are people merely going to see yet another website hard-selling low-quality products? Studies have found that more than 90% of consumers are more likely to buy from an authentic brand than a potentially dishonest one. So, try to keep the message genuine and avoid overselling your products.

2. Offer No-Quibble Exchanges and Returns

Sometimes people change their minds, and sometimes they misread product descriptions and don’t receive what they thought they were buying. So, the ability to return unwanted products is a crucial feature of an ecommerce site. Offering hassle-free returns and exchanges generates trust in your brand by suggesting that you have confidence in your products. The ability to return products also takes the risk out of purchasing products on your eCommerce site.

3. Don’t Compromise on Quality

Quality is relative. However, it will help if you always deliver on your promises. Even if you are selling heavily discounted products, your customers will still expect value for money. It only takes one bad experience to put a consumer off a brand for life. So, quality control is a must in ecommerce if you want to generate customer loyalty. Set realistic expectations of your products in your product descriptions and images. Use genuine product photos, for example, and avoid over-hyped product descriptions. Customers who are pleasantly surprised by what they receive will probably come back for more.

4. Reach Out to Customers on Multiple Channels

The more you engage with your customers, the more loyal they will become. So, don’t make the only contact you have with your customers the promotional emails you send. Instead, share useful and informative content on social media channels. Participate in online forums that your customers are likely to visit, and generate shareable content like tutorials, tips and guides, and interactive media like competitions with prizes. Generate the feeling of a community around your brand, and you will be rewarded with customer loyalty and referrals.

5. Let Customers Know You Listen

Customers want their voices to be heard. So, respond to complaints and criticisms and act when customers raise issues with you. When you correct problems or improve your service, let customers know what steps you have taken. Mistakes are inevitable, and not all your products will live up to the customer’s expectations. However, if you ask for customer feedback and act on it, you will increase customer loyalty to your brand in the long run.

6. Welcome All New Customers

Personalization is key to generating customer loyalty on an ecommerce website. The best way to begin personalizing your service is to give each of your new customers a personalized and warm welcome when they first interact with your site. When someone subscribes to your mailing list or makes their first purchase, send them a genuine sounding thank you and introductory email. For maximum benefit, it is best to address the customer by name, and have the welcome message sent by someone like the founder of the site or the chief executive officer (CEO). Express your gratitude for the person joining your site, and let the new customer know where to go or who to contact should they need any assistance.

7. Start a Loyalty Program

Point-based loyalty programs are an easy way to generate customer loyalty. As customers buy more from you, they can see their reward points building up, so there is a tangible benefit of staying loyal to your brand. And, of course, when customers come to redeem their reward points, they will likely spend more money with you. Creating a loyalty program is relatively inexpensive and straightforward. If you are using WooCommerce, you can use plugins like WooRewards and SUMO Reward Points. You can also offer incentives like free shipping and gifts to encourage people to join your loyalty program.

8. Send Regular Personalized Communication

As mentioned, personalization generates loyalty, and giving your customs a personalized experience doesn’t end after the welcome message. It is best to keep in touch with customers with regular emails to maintain a human connection. Segment your mailing list so you can send targeted emails and address your customers by name. Celebrate important dates, like customer’s birthdays and anniversaries, to increase the personal connection further. Remember to send a follow-up email after each purchase, too. Thank customers for placing an order and ask them for their feedback.

9. Demonstrate Social Responsibility

Consumers like to know that the brands they support have similar beliefs and values to their own. Demonstrating that your business’s values align with your customers’ will help establish long-term relationships. If you sell recyclable products, for example, your efforts to be a sustainable business will resonate with your customers. Donations to a worthy cause will also create a connection with customers in some niches.

10. Provide Exceptional Customer Service

Ensure that the customer experience on your ecommerce site is as efficient and stress-free as possible. From placing an order to timely delivery, your customers will be judging your business on the service you provide as much as your products’ quality. When you are competing in a crowded market, your customer service will set you apart from your competition. So, make service your priority if you want to encourage repeat business and gain referrals.

A loyal customer base will provide you with a steady and reliable income stream from your ecommerce site. And existing satisfied customers are always easier to sell to the more sceptical first-time customers. So, be genuine, demonstrate that you care, provide an excellent customer experience, and customers will reward your efforts with their loyalty.

Building a loyal customer base is essential to growing and maintaining a successful business. Loyal customers will always choose your brand over any others.

They will do this based on their experience of your products, customer service and the unique qualities that set your business apart.

The Buyer Journey

The route a prospective buyer takes from addressing a problem to finding the solution is known as the buyer journey. It can be broken down into three stages:

Awareness:

When a potential customer recognizes a problem they want resolved it is known as the Awareness stage.

You should reflect on the sort of questions they will be asking, and why your business can provide the answers.

It is also valuable to remember that the potential buyer may not have clearly defined needs. Good customer service will respond to this and help clarify and inform.

Consideration:

During this stage the potential buyer has defined their problem and is committed to finding a solution to it. They will want to know the possible answers to their issue and consider the best opportunity.

It is likely that they have discovered your brand as the best candidate for delivering a solution to their issue.

Decision:

At the decision stage the potential buyer has decided on a solution. At this point you should aim to make the final part of the process seamless and assured.

This is another stage where user experience is vital. This is just as true in a physical store as it is online.

For example, a customer service vendor with relevant retail information and sales technology at their fingertips can deliver a positive end result for both customer and business.

Generating Brand Loyalty

At the culmination of the buyer journey the aim should be to retain the customer’s loyalty.

Studies have shown that loyal customers are more likely to spend more and visit more regularly. Finding new customers is also important for business, but it will cost more in terms of marketing for the projected returns.

Looking after your customers is essential. It is the most cost-effective way of ensuring a good profitability and return on investment.

Streamlining the buyer journey

Making the entire buying process as convenient as possible is crucial in building loyalty. By producing an effective path through the various stages, it will be more likely that a customer will return.

It should be noted that the buyer journey does not always adhere to a traditional linear progression.

The buyer might be applying various methods to the different stages of their journey.  This makes it vital to be flexible and able to respond to all of their enquiries.

Key to making the process more efficient is the utilization of methods to streamline the buyer journey.

Here are some tips on how to do this:

• Consider using prepared scripts to improve communication with the customer at the various stages of their journey. This will ensure that they are properly informed and confident in the process.

• All of the information that your business holds about a customer can be integrated into a CRM system, making it quicker to respond to their inquiries.

• By knowing exactly where a potential buyer is in their journey, you can offer them the most relevant information they need to make a decision. Combining your sales and marketing teams will bring about a more effective experience for everyone involved.

A proactive business always puts the buyer journey at the heart of their operations. By streamlining the route that customers take to finding the best solution to their enquiries, you will develop a profitable business relationship.

There is a shift in power going on, fuelled by greater access to information in the digital age, new technology and a broader variety of brands, products and services to choose from, today’s consumer are empowered like never before.

Rachel Bradbury Head of CCB Client Relationship & Development at Paragon Customer Communications discusses the strategies driving effective customer experience (CX) and brand loyalty efforts.

In the past brands have typically sought to earn loyalty from customers, but in a competitive and evolving environment, that is being turned on its head. With an expanded consumer choice, customers no longer base their loyalty on price or product alone. In fact, 86% of buyers are willing to pay more for a great customer experience. While, 96% of customers say customer service is important in their choice of loyalty to a brand.

As a result, modern consumers now expect brands to demonstrate loyalty to them, by delivering an enhanced customer experience and meaningful interactions across all touchpoints, making effective customer communications and customer experience (CX) programmes an absolute priority for brands that wish to succeed.

To position themselves at the forefront of the longer-term transitions in customer dynamics, Chief Customer Officers (CCOs) and customer service managers need to be more reactive and flexible around customer preference and touchpoints. This means developing flexible communication frameworks that can cope with all touchpoints on the customer journey, be that online or offline interactions, and which can react to changes in a customer’s channel preferences and behaviours.

To achieve such a level of customer-centric communication proficiency, CCOs need not only a comprehensive understanding of their customers, their communication preferences and unique behaviours, but also a suite of increasingly advanced technologies and communications channels to engage consumers.

Understanding the customer

Market leading customer communications and CX initiatives are entirely reliant on good data. By bringing together all customer data, standardising it and garnering actionable insights from the information pertained, brands can deliver communications that resonate best with their customers and drives positive results.

Of course, achieving this can prove a seismic challenge for many organisations. Today’s businesses often have a number of legacy systems in place, each generating their own unique disparate datasets, hindering the ability to unify data from all touchpoints and create a clear and accurate journey map of a customer’s end-to-end experience.

Without such a clear view of consumer behaviours and stages in the buying journey, brands often fail to invest in the appropriate communication platforms and technologies to effectively engage their consumers. Indeed, organisations run the very real risk of missing key customer engagement points and having siloed communication channels, leading to particularly damaging prospect of customer journey disconnect.

Standardising data, therefore, is arguably the most critical step in creating the delivery infrastructure to support heavily data-rich CX strategies and customer communications management (CCM) delivery models. It can, however, be an extremely time consuming and draining step for even the largest global organisations.

While retiring multiple legacy systems and replacing them with a single solution would be the ideal solution, understandably, this is not always feasible. This is particularly prevalent for organisations that have multiple ongoing contracts with different vendors, often across localised regions or departments.

A centralised approach

 Employing an intelligent, single, centralised customer communications management delivery model – a ‘one platform’ approach – can provide a standardised view of all data no matter what systems are feeding it. The result is the ability to maintain legacy systems, while at the same time consolidating multiple data sources and previously disjointed communications technologies to work from a single system and viewpoint.

By removing layers of complexity an intuitive system of this nature provides the delivery infrastructure to support truly frictionless customer communications across a multitude of traditional and digital channels.

By centralising the management of their inbound and outbound customer interactions, and empowering teams to work from a single system, organisations are given total control of their brand, content and compliance. From a regulatory perspective, a centralised approach unlocks new levels of visibility that can help simplify document audits and ensure communications stay compliant with changing industry regulation.

As data becomes increasingly essential to pushing CX strategies forward in new directions – the unified view of existing customer data can present innumerable advantages. Not only can it lead to a critical understanding of customers’ unique behaviours, preferences and their stage in the customer journey, but also communication strategies that are entrenched in customer-relevant messages and incisive targeting.

This seamless incorporation of data into a fully-integrated suite of communication solutions can enable organisations to effortlessly plan, create and deliver highly personalised communications across all channels through an easy, optimised operation from anywhere, at any time.

Particularly critical in the modern age, where customer journeys can transform virtually instantaneously, the resultant centralised view of how organisations communicate with their customers makes deploying changes at pace across all channels much easier.

 Of course, having the appropriate technology in place is only part of the solution. By working alongside an experienced communications partner, like Paragon Customer Communications, organisations will be able to maintain visibility of all communications, while also having the expertise on hand to drive their digital transformation and empower customer service managers to capitalise on new opportunities.

For more information, visit: https://oneplatform.paragon-cc.com/en/one-platform

About the Author

For over 20 years, Rachel Bradbury has been a leading authority in marketing and client strategy in the omnichannel communications space. Currently serving as Head of CCB Client Relationship & Development at Paragon Customer Communications, the UK’s leading provider of end-to-end omnichannel services for marketing, transactional, operational and workplace solutions, she has extensive experience in customer experience (CX), brand experience and digital and physical customer communications. A highly skilled senior leader and client director, she has a proven track record of helping businesses and brands to develop highly engaging strategies and experiences that set them apart from the competition.

In today’s irregular world you need to make sure your customers are loyal to your brand. Anastasia Tatsenko, Head of Sales and Customer Success at NetHunt CRM explains.

In the regular world, obtaining customer loyalty is an important goal for any business to achieve. But the world we are living in is far from regular. In this post-apocalyptic virus scenario, the tables have turned. Nowadays, customer retention is not just a yummy dessert but the main course: the bread and water; the filet mignon and wine of post-COVID business survival.

There’s been an understandable drop in disposable income, so consumers are significantly less willing to spend money. Perhaps that luxury purse or a premium Netflix subscription was not a necessity but rather a whim after all.

But it isn’t only customers trying to save up and avoid excessive spending. You know what they say though, work smarter, not harder. You can save up a lot of money by reevaluating your current strategy, which is exactly where customer retention comes to play. It’s a known fact that it costs five times less to retain a customer than it does to acquire one.

You need to focus on your customer retention strategy and make sure your customers are loyal to your brand! The best way to confront the post-COVID bounceback is to turn to what I call the “CARE strategy”. CARE is my personal approach to customer retention and it’s what works best for my clients.

• Closed feedback loops
• Assured personalisation
• Request- flexibility
• Expert Guidance.

All of these aspects comprise the most holistic approach to driving customer loyalty and guaranteeing success… even in a post-pandemic situation.

Closed Feedback Loops

A feedback loop is a process where outputs are drawn back in once a loop is finished and used again as inputs. In the business world, it means using your customers’ feedback to better the product you offer.

The formula is simple. To retain customers, you need to focus on them. The first rule of any customer-centric organisation is to ensure customer feedback loops are closed for good. Getting buyer feedback is terrific for analytics, product improvement, and marketing purposes. However, it’s closing feedback loops that turns average customers into brand advocates and promoters. When your customers see you’ve looked into their feedback and used it to make your products better, not only do they feel like their time spent leaving feedback was worth it, but they also feel proud to be a part of your company. This thrill and satisfaction will help your customers stay loyal to your brand.

The only condition is that you need to understand what counts as closing the loop and what doesn’t. For instance, sending automated messages with generic content is a perfect example of a poorly executed attempt to close a loop. It’s impersonal, expected, and detached from the unique customer experience; they don’t offer much value for the customer who is suggesting feedback.

On the other hand, here are some things you should do when closing feedback loops:

1. Ensure you provide immediate visibility. Set expectations with your customers. Show them it’s tracked and taken into consideration by mentioning it somewhere along the way.
2. Reward customers who are willing to collaborate with you.
3. Ask follow-up questions.
4. Differentiate between different types of customer and the feedback they give. There inevitably will be customers with unrealistic suggestions, so you need to make sure you know what can and cannot be done with your product.

At NetHunt, we let our customers know that their feedback made a difference, and we have improved the product based on what they requested. For us, it results in more loyalty and trust.

Assured Personalisation

Personalisation refers to creating a product or providing a service that meets unique, individual requirements of your customers.

Personalisation deepens the bond between you and your customers, creating an emotional connection that drives them to repeat purchases. If you manage to show your customers that you put extra thought into the product you offer, and spend more time customising it to meet your customer’s specific needs, you’ll see a rapid boost in sales.

Just to prove my point here, remember when Coca Cola launched its ‘Share a Coke’ campaign? No matter how big of a Pepsi fan you are, I bet you spent a dollar or two to put a photo of your ‘personal can of Coke’ on Instagram; just because your name was on it. Even if you didn’t, you definitely know somebody who did. Stats please!

Coca Cola’s US soft drink sales increased by 0.4% year-on-year.

Enable just-in-time personalisation; It’s essential you systematically analyse the market to sense shifts in demand quickly. Be prompt when spotting the most vulnerable customers requiring the most attention. To do that, you need to combine both digital and real-life marketing data with current epidemiological models.

It turns out, dealing with all that information can still be a piece of cake. All you need is a reliable technology to have your back. Employing a CRM system helps with personalization, you just need to define user segments properly and set it up into the system. For example, NetHunt CRM allows its users to tag customers, segment them by certain criteria, create dedicated lists, and send personalised messages based on that.

Based on the current situation, you can add new tags and segment customers based on the extent to which they have been affected by the crisis.

If you have clients in the travel or hotel industry, you might understand that their business probably isn’t in the best shape, whereas businesses in healthcare and delivery are booming. With proper segmentation, you can dedicate communication channels to offering additional features for companies who benefit from the crisis in the long term, while proposing discounts or split payment options for clients in trouble.

Request-flexibility

Request-flexibility is the art of adjusting your business to meet the current needs of your customers in such a way that it is beneficial to both sides.

Although we have already survived the first wave of coronavirus and the lockdowns, it’s still too early to talk about any sort of certainty in life. You need to make sure you remain flexible if you want your customers to stay with you during such uneasy times.

A lot of businesses that were fine using your product and making a set order from you might not have the ability to pay for it now.

If you want your business to strive, be ready to change the conditions and meet your customers at the midpoint. Here are just some ways in which you can do that:

• If you have the profit margin, offer your clients individual discounts.
• Give them a payment holiday.
• Arrange terms for an extended warranty.

This helps you stand out. Don’t go without a fight, but make sure you’re using an appropriate weapon. Right now, you’re unlikely to fool someone with advanced marketing, so you need to add some real value. Don’t be ridiculous with discounts — a drop too significant looks dodgy and doesn’t just harm your revenue figures, but also your reputation through an inconsistent marketing mix.

Expert Guidance

Expert guidance is essentially assistance from a knowledgeable rep of your company that makes the life of your customers easier.

One way in which you can add value to your product is by excelling at guiding your customers. Ensuring your customer success team works hard is a job half done. Sometimes knowing you won’t have any difficulties or will have someone to talk to and get them resolved is the key factor to customer loyalty.

However, to provide expert-level guidance to your customers, you need to make sure you know exactly who you are dealing with: are they the ‘I can handle it myself, just tell me how’ or the ‘please help me’ type? Depending on the answer to that, the approach you should take differs a lot.

We are constantly reviewing the clients’ accounts to increase the depth of the system usage, show relevant features they are not using by the customer, and bring more order to their workflows.

Remember, just like Maya Angelou pointed out, people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel. Especially after the whole COVID madness when positive emotions are in such high demand.

About the Author

Anastasia Tatsenko is the Head of Sales and Customer Success at NetHunt CRM. Anastasia is a passionate sales leader and a perfect product-demonstrator. She’s keen on competitor analysis, sales operations, and partner negotiations.

If you asked 100 Customer Service Representatives to identify their least favorite aspect of their job, 98 would probably say it is dealing with angry customers.

Once a customer has reached the boiling point of frustration and annoyance, it can be very difficult – and trying – to bring your company back into that customer’s favor once again. However, the task is not impossible, and with these 10 tips, you can successfully transform an angry customer into a loyal client once again.

1. Switch your thinking from dealing with a complaint to handling a concern. Behind your customer’s anger is likely a legitimate concern that you can help her with. Focus on the concern and a solution will come more easily.

2. Thank her for her concern. It may seem strange to thank someone who is ranting at you, but she is giving you the chance to make things right, rather than moving her business down the street. And that definitely deserves a thanks!

3. Listen to your customer. Pay attention to body language, tone and (of course) what she tells you. Reiterate her concern to be sure you have the gist of the problem down and to prove you were listening to her.

4. Empathize with her frustration. We’ve all been in situations where we have been angry with a company. Let your customer know that you have been in her shoes and you understand her feelings.

5. Apologize when appropriate. Sometimes, mistakes happen. If this was a legitimate mistake by your company, apologize to your customer for the error and subsequent inconvenience and frustration.

6. Stay calm and courteous throughout. It is easy to get defensive when you feel like you are being attacked, but raising your voice or changing your tone will only serve to enrage your customer further.

7. Reassure your customer that you will find a solution to the problem. Let her know that you will be her point of contact until that resolution is complete.

8. Find that solution. Do not play the blame game or pass the buck. Just fix it for your customer.

9. Follow up. Want to make an angry customer even angrier? Drop the ball before you get a resolution to her concern. If you are serious about transforming this customer, you will need to see the problem through to its final outcome. If you need to involve others in the issue, follow up with those people to ensure the job gets done in a timely fashion.

10. Go the extra mile. Here is where the real transformation begins. Once you solve the problem, your customer is satisfied. By adding something extra, a discount on a next visit, a follow-up card in the mail or another token of appreciation, you get a customer who is truly delighted.

Angry customers are a challenge for any company, but the good news is there are effective strategies for dealing with these difficult situations. With these 10 steps, most of your angry customers will transform into delighted, loyal customers who will return to your business and even tell others about your winning service attitude.