How to Build Customer Loyalty
Introduction
Customer loyalty is a word that gets thrown around a lot when you talk about increasing your sales but rarely do we stop and ask ourselves what this phrase means and how you actually go about building customer loyalty. That’s the purpose of this article. We’re going to learn what customer loyalty is, why we care, and how we can build it to ensure repeat sales.
Loyalty Is pretty simple: “a strong feeling of support or allegiance.” When customers are loyal to you, they’re more likely to purchase your products because they have a connection with you. Some companies are famous for their very loyal customers.
Apple, for example, has line-ups around the block each time one of their products goes on sale. Some of their customers are so anxious to get their hands on the product they will camp out for hours to do so. These super-fans often buy only Apple products if an Apple version of the product they wish to purchase is available, no matter the price difference between Apple and their competitors.
There are several strategies you can use to build customer loyalty – even if you never reach “Apple” levels of fandom.
Provide a Quality Product
This one has to be first! The reason that Apple has such devoted fans is not just because their products are cool or interesting or exclusive (or expensive!) It’s because their products are consistently very high quality. When consumers know what to expect from you, you build up goodwill.
Apple has occasionally released products that weren’t as high quality or that had errors that needed to be worked out but because they’ve spent so much time building good products consumers are much more likely to give them leeway.
Aim to produce the best quality product you can, and you’ll already give yourself a huge lead in building customer loyalty as people are already missing out by switching to a competitor.
Set up a Loyalty Program
As the name suggests, a loyalty program is one that rewards you overtime for your continued loyalty. This could be as simple as a restaurant that provides one free sandwich after a customer has purchased 10 other sandwiches. Other companies (like Caseys) provide a points system where for each dollar you spend, tracked to your account, you get points. Once you have enough you can redeem those for rewards.
Regardless of what option you choose, a loyalty program gives customers an incentive to choose you over others who provide the same products you do and everyone loves getting things for free!
Provide Coupons to Continuing Customers
If you don’t want to go through the effort to set up a loyalty program, establishing a couponing program where people can get a coupon to apply to their next purchase gives them an incentive to come back. For instance, once or twice a year you could give each customer who shops with you within a 2-week span, a $10 off coupon that can be applied on their next purchase of $50 or more.
This gives them an opportunity to return and ensures you’ll have a big enough spend that you still meet your minimum margins. Everybody wins! By promoting your coupon offer on social media you may also draw in some people who hadn’t tried you yet, but were interested.
Provide a Discount on Bulk Purchases
You can also provide bulk discounts. This doesn’t have to be a large amount, but volume discounts encourage consumers to increase their purchasing and encourage them to keep coming back.
Use Social Media
A short diversion: did you know that a scientist once had people drink Coke and Pepsi while their brains were scanned? It’s true. When they drank the beverages blind (they didn’t know which drink was which), they found that the dopamine producing part of the brain was more stimulated when people drank Pepsi suggesting it was the tastier beverage.
Then, they had them drink the beverages when they were labelled. Now, the Coke produced more dopamine. When they continued the experiment though, even when they lied about which beverage was which (they labelled Pepsi as Coke and vice versa), the drink labelled Coke still produced more dopamine!
The researchers concluded that it was not the recipe or the drink itself that was causing these positive feelings, but the influence of Coke’s pervasive marketing. What this means is that if you use your social media to spark good feelings, people will remember this. When it comes time to shop, they may choose your company simply because they remember the good feelings that you give them.
Conclusion
If you provide a good product and encourage your customers to keep coming back with loyalty programs, coupons, and volume price discounts combined with a good social media strategy you’ll have everything you need to have strong customer loyalty today and in the future.
Good luck!
