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The Essentials For Creating Loyal Customers

Jacob Brain

Author

The Essentials For Creating Loyal Customers

Without a doubt, every company executive will agree that creating loyal customers is key to business success.  The question is, do they understand how their business is creating loyal customers? Some may say that they have a discount program that keeps customers coming back or even that their newsletter is keeping them engaged and coming back.  While these items are great to have when used correctly, they are not enough.  In this article we will share with you exactly what the essentials are in creating loyal customers.

Build loyalty from the inside first. 

Building trust with your employees is a must when creating loyal customers. If you are competent, respectful and consistent in your actions, employees will want to work for you and will enjoy working for you.  Showing these characteristics plus having integrity, will keep your employees happy and they will share their happiness and loyalty to you with your customers.  Additionally, if you’re employees don’t find value in your product or service, chances are that they are conveying that to customers whether intentional or not. If this is the case, you have a huge problem.  When your retention problem is internal, you’ll find it very difficult to build loyalty from the inside first and you’ll find that these employees are helping your customers walk out the door and not come back. A loyalty program won’t fix your sales and retention issues. They’re made to reward consumers, not solve problems.

Provide great customer service. 

Customer service equals retention. Customers remember being treated well so you must be proactive and reactive when it comes to customer service or else you’ll be sure not to retain your customers.  However, if you give great customer service before a problem occurs and during problem resolution, you’ll be on your way to creating a loyal customer.  If you’re not sure how to provide great customer service, be sure to read our article on the three foundations of customer service.

Know your products and services. 

Take the time to sit down and evaluate what your customers purchase the most if you want to create loyal customers.  Then, focus on that by making sure each of your employees interacting with customers are thoroughly knowledgeable about that product or service. Your customers are expecting you to be the expert and will go to someone else if you don’t show your expertise.

Create a Winning Program

Your loyalty program is only going to be a winning program if it is able to create alignment between your products and services, staff, and organization mission. To the eye of your customer, a loyalty program is a measuring stick of what loyalty behavior looks like. To create a winning program, you need a good understanding of your customer data, brand promise and marketing that puts it all together. This is where New North can help you the most, creating a program that works. 

Reduce complexity.

Last but not least, your customers will keep coming back if they can purchase your product or service with ease. Also, if you have a discount program or rewards program, be sure that engaging in these programs is easy.  The less a customer has to do, the happier they are.

 

By creating loyal customers, you can turn a one-way marketing channel into multiple promotional conversations, which is a guaranteed way to increase revenue.  If you have found that you have a group of customers that are more loyal than others, start a loyalty program to reward them for being so great.  If you already have a customer loyalty program, do you understand your customer lifetime value?  If not, contact us for a no-pressure conversation on how we can help you with your loyalty program review.

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