The idea of a customer who will only buy your brand, always look for your latest offerings and generally be prepared to overlook the competition in favor of your brand and company is the one that all entrepreneurs and businesses dream of. This is the ever-elusive ‘loyal customer’, a customer for life and one that will only leave you if some of the issues and suggestions below are not in place to build and develop this lifelong loyalty.
1. The product needs to be the best it can be
No customers are going to stay with the brand if the products and services just don’t meet the required standards and aren’t actually better than your competitors. So, step one in the entire process is to ensure that your product, and or, service is the best it can be.
2. Communicate, communicate, communicate
If your customers and clients don’t know or aren’t aware of the new products and services, then they won’t be able to show such loyalty. Building loyalty is all about communication and this will need to be consistent and ongoing with your client base. One of the biggest mistakes made by modern businesses is that they start a communication platform or process that they can’t maintain; simply put, don’t.
3. Brand consistency and solid foundations
The brand needs to have a consistent message and a clear backstory. Customers will only want to join the digital experience and stay on for a journey if there is a believable company backstory and this translates into solid brand consistency.
4. Look to provide a customer success journey
Rather than looking at the customer as just a sale or at the immediate benefits alone, your marketing campaign must be a long game. It is a journey and not a destination and the journey must focus on the customer at all times. The use of digital technology to transform the entire customer experience is now key if you hope to retain these customers as explained by Simpplr.
5. Be where your customers are
You need to have done your research as to where the customers that you want to reach are spending their time online. If you’re only designing marketing material for the internet and PC platforms without considering the mobile app sector then you’re already missing most of the market. You need to be on the platforms and in the media that your customer base is on.
6. Use the data that you gather at each contact point
In an age of big data, you definitely need to know how to use each contact point to the best of your ability to gather, store and collate relevant business data. Then being able to use/analyze this data to produce the best targeted and personalized digital customer experience that you can.
Building customer loyalty isn’t a one-day sprint, and simply having the appropriate technology will not get you there any quicker. Yes, it is a journey that will be aided and abetted by the appropriate technology, but that must also be targeted and focused on the customer in such a way as to keep them central in what you are doing.