To grow as a brand, you must attract new clients while keeping current ones. If you constantly bleed customers, you’ll be stuck in the same pattern and never grow past where you are. However, if you can develop client loyalty, you’ll retain the ones you have and begin to build momentum for your small business.
What is the secret ingredient that drives some customers to stick with a brand for decades? Clearly, it’s about more than pricing or customer service. The entire customer experience is what leads to trust and forming unbreakable bonds. In turn, when you recommend a product or service, the user will trust you to deliver, which leads to more and more sales success.
You can’t control every variable, but there are many things you can do to build client loyalty.
1. Know Your Competitors
According to the Small Business Administration, there are approximately 33.2 million small businesses in the United States. Chances are, you have at least a few competitors in your field. Get to know what they offer to consumers and how they compare to you.
If you want to drive client loyalty, you must be the absolute best you can be. One way of achieving this is to make sure you offer what the other guys offer. Take time to figure out the competition’s unique value propositions. Are you at least matching them? What about you stands out from the rest, and how can you enhance that for your customers?
2. Get Personal
Client loyalty often starts with a mutually beneficial partnership. The relationships you build with your customers can keep them with you for years or drive them away. They should feel that if they have an issue with the product or service you sell, they can come to you and get a resolution.
Know your top clients by name and reach out to them for important occasions. Getting customer feedback is always a plus. Phone a customer and ask if everything is working as they’d like or if they need any assistance. Don’t always wait for a client to call you before finding and fixing an issue or adding some additional value to the service.
Set up your sales funnel so it greets them by name and guides them to the place they most likely want to go. Amazon does an excellent job of this, calling the customer by name and showing them suggestions based on past browsing and buying history.
3. Develop a Total Experience Strategy
Recent studies show people expect a lot more from brands than in the past. They want seamless digital experiences no matter how they access your company. The result is a total experience approach, looking at how useful and friendly touchpoints are.
Some of the benefits of a total experience approach include finding areas for improvement, showing employees what to prioritize and increasing customer loyalty. When a person’s needs are met before they even have to express them, they are much more likely to walk away with a positive impression of the brand.
4. Go Above and Beyond
Give your employees the freedom to solve customer problems in creative ways. Imagine being the customer and you have a serious situation, whether it’s your fault or not, and you are desperate for a solution. The customer service rep not only fixes your problem but does so in a way you never expected.
For example, a marketing firm releases a new ad campaign for a client, using the details the client sent. Unfortunately, the customer sent the wrong image and the entire campaign shows a product they no longer produce.
The client calls customer service in sheer panic. When you give your workers freedom, they can immediately contact the social media marketing guru and get the image changed in seconds instead of days. When they come back on the line, they can tell the customer not to worry that the image is now the correct one and is already delivered on social media. The customer messed up, but you made it better for them and built your relationship to a new level.
5. Gain Their Trust
How do you gain the trust of new and existing customers? You need to do more than just show them through great customer service. Make sure they never have a second to falter and wonder if there is a better program or way of doing things.
If you’re offering software as a service, the effort to use it should be so seamless they never stumble. If you sell a physical product, test it until you’re blue in the face so the user never encounters a problem you don’t already know how to fix.
Around 73% of consumers say experience is a huge factor in what they buy. You can improve user flow so the CX is stellar. Put yourself in the client’s shoes and walk through every step of the buyer’s journey to ensure there are no bottlenecks.
6. Adopt a Consistent Approach
The way you interact with customers and your service policies can impact how trustworthy you seem. Have you ever heard someone say that if you don’t get the response you want from a particular brand to just call back until you do?
When you don’t have clear policies, customers quickly learn you don’t mean what you say. While your entire company should be built on a customer-first approach and trying to keep the client happy, there are some unreasonable expectations you can and should say no to.
One example is a client who pays for a graphic design job. They suddenly start having internet connectivity problems, and because they can’t access their own email to download the file, they start blowing up the design firm asking for help in solving their personal internet problems. Not only shouldn’t you help with such an issue, but you probably can’t. They need to contact their service provider.
Lay out some specifications so employees know what is and isn’t doable to keep customers appeased. Have policies in place but still allow some freedom in decision making for the best results.
7. Connect on an Emotional Level
Emotional intelligence means you understand what drives your customers and try to connect with them on a deeper level. Around 42% of companies globally train senior management on emotional intelligence. The information helps management relate to employees and clients and improve communication.
Think about the root cause of why clients seek you out in the first place. Let’s say you are a dog trainer. People may reach out when they have a problem with their dog. What are the emotions driving them? For some, it may be fear that their dog will hurt another human being or animal. For others, love and wanting to enjoy their pet might move them to action.
Once you understand the whys of your customers, it’s easier to figure out the emotions behind them and move toward a deeper connection with clients. When people feel understood, they are much more likely to be loyal. They may also feel more comfortable spending money on what you’re selling.
To Gain and Keep Client Loyalty, Always Follow Through
Client loyalty is difficult to gain and easy to lose. Make sure you always follow through and reach out to clients even after finishing a job. Ask them if they are happy or if you can make any adjustments to gain their repeat business in the future. Be open to feedback. You’ll learn a lot from the words your clients say.
