Mastering Customer Loyalty in the Digital Era
Doesn’t matter how big your company is or which sector it operates in, one fact still remains very important – it is 5 times costlier to acquire a new customer than to keep an existing one.
Customer loyalty and digital age should not be mutually exclusive terms. In fact, businesses now have more measurable insights, real-time customer-behavior-tracking tools, freedom of communicating with customers in every spot of the world, and yet the statistics show that brand loyalty has plunged more than ever!
To make matters even worse, Accenture Strategy reports that 77% of consumers withdraw their loyalty at a quicker rate than three years ago, and 23% of customers indicated negative or non-existent response towards companies’ loyalty efforts.
Even though the statistics look scary, fear no more because we have some practical tips up our sleeve for using the digital age to your advantage to build as well as maintain customer loyalty.
Customer Loyalty Defined
Customer loyalty refers to the dedication of a customer towards buying products or services from a specific business. Companies should concentrate their efforts on customer loyalty as it is one of the main drivers of business growth.
Research showed that loyal customers spend 67% more compared to new ones. One of the great examples of businesses that benefit a lot from customer loyalty is Apple. Its customers are lining up weeks before the official release of a new iPhone. For example, prior to the release of iPhone 8, Apple scored a 92% loyalty rate.
Customers play a vital role in the Apple’s growth. They are company’s advocates and are readily available to promote its products and protect the image of the company anytime anywhere. Not only Apple but many big companies realize the importance of customer loyalty and concentrate all their efforts on strengthening the bond between the business and customer even more.
“Get closer than ever to your customers. So close that you tell them what they need well before they realize it themselves.” Steve Jobs
Now that you understand what customer loyalty means and why it is important, it’s time to dive into the tips!
Big Data for Bigger Insights
Analyzing the data that your customer leaves is considered customer analytics. Such actions facilitate the puzzle of connecting with customers and cut costs for the business. With the usage of data analytics and analyzing the buying patterns, as well as preferences of customers, businesses have a picture regarding what kind of campaigns and rewards will be appreciated by the customer.
Always keep an eye on the most popular products or services of your business but do not hesitate to analyze them in more details. Start analyzing which products are in more demand during which seasons or on which holidays, and make your advertising campaigns and offers more personalized.
Even despite the increasing concerns over collecting customer information, with an appropriate and ethical collection of data, your business will have a better strategy for maintaining customer loyalty with more satisfied customers. 65% of customers agreed on sharing their information in exchange for more targeted offers with respect to their preferences.
Social Media for Social Interactions
Always be on the lookout for reviews and feedback on social media. 50% of customers recommend the business to others, from where 14% of them express their feelings, both negative and positive, on social media.
It is important to be there when you receive the feedback. If something goes wrong, ask for details and do your best to make it up for the customer. If the feedback is positive, go beyond traditional thank you comments and ask them more about their personal thoughts about the product. Such actions will show you as a genuine company carrying for its clients and shall contribute to improving your customer loyalty.
Make sure you reward your most loyal customers on social media by sending small souvenirs and motivating them to post it. This will strengthen the bond between you two while serving you as a good PR to other potential customers.
Loyalty Programs for Increased Loyalty
Regardless of the century and trends, one thing that will always be important for improving customer loyalty is the loyalty program.
Yes, we understand that loyalty is important but now we have to make it happen and the reality is that in such competitive market acting fast is the key, otherwise the competitors will exploit the lack of your catching-up skills.
Though there are various loyalty programs, you can start with a simple bonus point system. Motivate your customers to use more of your services and products by giving them bonus points for every purchase which they can later use for discounts or buying your products.
This motivates your customer to spend more with you and decreases the feeling of wasting money as they are receiving something in return. The best part of it is that it is simple to implement while it will help you to build customer loyalty.
Omnichannel Customer Experience
Creating an omnichannel customer experience means gathering data and information regarding customer touchpoints across all engagement channels during their complete customer lifecycle.
To demonstrate how omnichannel model works, imagine your customer browses some information regarding your products online with their account, but the transaction failed. However, even before the client calls you, they receive a call from your customer service representative that will have a complete analysis of why the transaction did not go through.
All this happened due to an omnichannel program that gave your employee a complete overview of customers experience. Such innovation saves time for the customer by solving their problem quicker, which in its turn provides great buying experience resulting in happier and increased customer loyalty.
Omnichannel programs can help you to better acquire customer data, facilitating the personalization process. Such innovations give the business increased control over managing the customer relationship to their advantage. Predict the intent of your customers, identify important phases in their purchasing journeys and adjust your campaigns according to the data that you acquired due to omnichannel integrations.
Do Not Fear Innovation
To sum up, for achieving better customer loyalty in the digital age, one has to be open to implementing innovative solutions but many managers are uncertain of innovations.
Sometimes it means taking the funds from other projects to finance innovations and sometimes innovations are hard to describe in terms of ROI. However, most of the times innovation goes beyond tangible benefits and bring more intangible ones such as added-value, customer satisfaction, customer loyalty etc. that are more valuable, especially today. If you want to keep up with the competition, you have to keep up with the innovation as well.
All the tips provided above are a result of implementing innovations. Make sure you are open minded to novelty solutions and you will see happier customers that will become your loyal advocates!
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