What is customer loyalty and why is it important?
The bond you’ve built and nurtured between your brand and a happy customer is represented by customer loyalty. Their willingness to engage with your brand and give you repeat business helps you measure customer loyalty.
But establishing such a connection is no easy task. Every interaction must be carefully thought out and executed so that they continue to choose you over your competitors. An omnichannel solution – of which email marketing plays a vital role – is crucial for this.
So, what’s in it for you? So, for starters, it costs up to 7x more to recruit a new client than to maintain an old one, which implies loyal customers assist minimise your overall spending.
The average loyal customer spends 67% more, and you have a 60–70% chance of closing the sale with them. They are therefore more trustworthy than brand-new clients. By establishing loyalty among clients you can substantially enhance your sales and improve your bottom line.
Customers who are loyal to your brand are dependable, trustworthy, and devoted. Regrettably, they frequently go unnoticed or uncared for when organisations prioritise new customer acquisition above maintaining existing connections.
Simply put, repeat business is more economical. Focusing on customer pleasure across the full customer experience is the best method to guarantee a customer’s loyalty. By raising overall customer satisfaction (CSAT) levels, you can reduce customer churn and boost revenue while also increasing loyalty.
Let’s break down some key ways to increase customer loyalty.
6 ways to increase customer loyalty
- Understand who your customer is
Gather data from numerous sources and channels every time a customer engages with your brand. These interactions assist you in creating a thorough customer profile that identifies the person and what they are seeking from your business.
Utilising a customer data platform can help you collect and manage consumer data to enhance client loyalty. You can examine the complete picture of who your consumer is and how they wish to interact with your business when you gather data from diverse sources and eliminate data silos.
Through customised campaigns and messaging, you can demonstrate to them that you know more about them than just their first name. Personalised customer experiences increase revenue and loyalty. The easiest approach to start is by improving how you use client data so that you can invest in developing loyal relationships.
- Involve your consumers with meaningful dialogue
The days of automatic and generalist communications are passed. Customers appreciate and value personalised communication with brands. In fact, only personalised messaging engages 72% of customers. By developing customised content, you create meaningful communication with your customers, which increases their satisfaction. Considering 80% of frequent purchasers only purchase from brands who personalise their interactions, this step is an essential for enhancing client loyalty and maximising revenue.
Take advantage of an omnichannel customer engagement hub that tracks the behaviour and engagement of every customer. It is essential to analyse their behaviour and send relevant information through their favourite channels throughout their customer journey. Sending: is one of the most effective ways to engage your customers.
- Reminders for payments
- Vouchers for their wish list items
- Promotional offers for important dates, such as birthdays or anniversaries
- Messages when their favourite products are back in stock
- updates on order status
- Segment and personalise your loyalty programme
A loyalty programme alone is insufficient. When 90% of businesses have loyalty programmes but 71% of customers say it has no effect on their loyalty, something’s got to give. The trick is to understand how to increase customer engagement in loyalty programmes to make them more valuable.
Customers need to feel the benefits of a loyal relationship with a brand. Generalising your customers will not be enough to keep them loyal to you. By making loyalty programmes unique to each customer, you can increase brand loyalty and customer repurchases.
By using what you already know about your customers to ensure that the rewards and promotions they receive are pertinent to them and their status within the programme, you can optimise your programme.
- Take advantage of feedback
Analysing feedback helps you map each customer’s journey with your brand. It can help you identify pain points and guide you on how to target them in the future. Many businesses gather customer feedback information, but the level of customer loyalty you can develop depends on how you use that information.
As SMS has a 98% open rate compared to email marketing, it may be time to move past email surveys and optimise on other channels. Moments allows you to send customised follow-up messages or surveys via the customer’s favourite channels. Using SMS, WhatsApp, Viber or Messenger can improve convenience and satisfaction with your brand.
By listening to their reviews, you can provide them with exactly what they want. Target them with similar reviews if they gave your products high marks, or steer them away from campaigns for items they returned or that weren’t right for them.
- Be responsive and reliable
Customers appreciate brands that manage to respond to inquiries quickly. Being reliable and responsive in your communication with customers can increase customer loyalty tremendously. Almost 70% of customers say when they switch from one business to another, it has nothing to do with being dissatisfied with the product. The main reason for the loss in loyalty is poor customer service.
You might need a chatbot to improve your responsiveness to the next level. If FAQs or miscellaneous questions overload your channels, you can programme the chatbot to respond to these inquiries, so live agents don’t have to.
The chatbot may understand user intent and incorporate NLP for a fully conversational experience on any channel because personalisation is essential for fostering customer loyalty. An agent having a complete understanding of the client’s experiences with the brand can be effortlessly transferred to the customer when the chatbot is unable to provide all the information they need.
You may automate monotonous chores using a chatbot to free up support staff time for difficult customer problems. Adding a failover channel, such as 2-Way SMS, will ensure that your consumers may contact you even if they aren’t connected to wi-fi or don’t have a cellular data connection, in addition to a chatbot.
These are three instances of how two-way SMS may speed up communication, save agents’ time, and increase customer loyalty:
- Streamline routine transactional processes by automating straightforward inquiries like bank updates, bill payments, and bus schedule requests.
- Automating appointment confirmations, cancellations, and rescheduling requests will reduce the effort of your receptionist and help you manage appointment scheduling.
- Brokering communications: For ride-sharing services, a driver can receive an SMS while having their true phone number hidden by sending it through a VLN. The messages are delivered, the inquiries are addressed, yet everyone’s privacy is protected.
- Reengage dormant clients
The loss of a client does not have to be permanent. Your responsibility is to engage and re engage clients in order to maintain enduring relationships. They are well known to you already. You are familiar with their customs, preferred methods of communication, and past purchasing patterns. Take advantage of this to lower your overall turnover.
Re-engaging is easy with push notifications. Send a pertinent notification via their preferred channel after a few weeks of inactivity on your app to persuade them to check out your deals again. Everything from a “we miss you” remark to a special 10% discount could be included in this communication.
Push notifications can also be used to re-engage lost consumers via geotargeting. Send them texts to let them know if a store is opening nearby or having a bargain. Geotargeting is great for reminding consumers in a certain area of your company by delivering them time-sensitive promotions.
Across the client process, increase customer loyalty
Customer loyalty is not something that can be gained immediately. To keep your clients happy and committed to your brand, you must actively endeavour to retain their pleasure. Every phase of their consumer journey must include this. Use their preferred channels to ensure constant engagement, from pre-sale (push notifications for products remaining in a cart) through post-sale (easy order monitoring and feedback surveys) to re-engagement (sending relevant promos and reminders).
The best approach to gather data, organise it, manage communication, pinpoint pain points, and boost satisfaction is through an omnichannel strategy. By improving client trust in your brand, you may lower turnover while boosting revenue. telling them you are the greatest option since you are the one who knows them the best.
