The goal of any business is to attain a profit. So is profit the heart of the business? If you think so, you are absolutely wrong. How is a business making a profit? When you get quality customers, right? Yes, so customers are the heart of any business. Without good, quality, and consistent customers, achieving profit will just remain as a dream for any business. The success of a business is not only attaining good customers but also maintaining them. Businesses will succeed only when they maintain their customers for a long period. If you give some offers and other advantages, you can acquire customers but it is really difficult to maintain all those customers. The only way to get the customers attracted to your business is for they should have faith, trust, and belief in your business through your eCommerce website. What can you do for that? Here comes the importance of customer loyalty. Customer loyalty can help you in attaining customers and maintaining those customers for a long period. Let’s see how customer loyalty can help your business.
What is a Customer Loyalty Program?
Companies throughout the world are depending more heavily on customer loyalty than ever before. The reason behind this is that companies realize that without having loyal customers, the path to success will be filled with stones and thorns. Anyway, let’s come to the point. What actually is customer loyalty? Customer loyalty is a commitment between a customer and a supplier that causes the customer to purchase more from the supplier, i.e., repeated purchases. This can be achieved by providing more offers and gifts to customers. If the customer is impressed by the offers you provide, then a kind of trust will be developed in his/her mind towards your business and it is actually this trust that turns out to be customer loyalty. Therefore, a vital bond is developed between the company and the customer. Hence you can not only gain more customers but can also retain your old customers, i.e., loyal customers. This can attain you a very good profit and sometimes more than what you expect.
How to Create Customer Loyalty?
Customer Loyalty cannot be accomplished easily. For that, you have to do certain things. So, let’s see how to create customer loyalty.
- Customer Communication: First of all, you need to let the customers know about your business and products. For that, you have to communicate with them on a consistent basis. You should make calls, send emails, text messages, and messages on social media(Facebook, WhatsApp, Twitter, Instagram, etc.), etc. to interact with the customers. Remember, don’t irritate or harass the customers by overdoing the process. So you should execute the communication process in a good and decent manner that will not disturb the customers. This process will let the customers know more about your business and if they are impressed, surely a positive result awaits.
- Try to be different from your competitors: Remember, there are many businesses in this universe and you can expect great competition in the field. So you should be different from others. Don’t do the exact same procedures that your competitors do. Be versatile. For this, you should learn and understand about your competitors. What are they doing? What are their strengths and weaknesses? You should know all these sorts of things and use this knowledge in elaborating your business.
- Reward loyal customers: This is a crucial step and should be executed well. Don’t forget to reward a customer who has had a lot of business with you, i.e., a loyal customer. Such customers are an asset to any business. So give them more offers and discounts that satisfy them. In some instances, select one of your loyal customers and give him/her a presentation. This can make them happier and trust in your business.
- Provide good customer service: If your customer service is not good or lack quality, it can negatively affect your business. Studies show that 67% of customers stopped buying products from businesses providing bad customer service. So the customer service should be good, quality one and should help the customers in all aspects. If you succeed in doing that, you can attain more loyal customers.
Importance of Customer Loyalty
You know it. At least some from the ideas we have discussed until now. Anyways let’s have a look at the importance of customer loyalty to any business
Increase in Profit: Customer acquisition or customer retention? Which one is the best option for a business to acquire more profit? If your answer is customer acquisition, we are sorry. Studies show that customer retention is providing more profit than customer acquisition. According to Harvard Business School, a 5% increase in customer retention rate can increase profit by 25% to 95% as they are doing repeat purchases. The advantage of loyal customers is that they will be there for a long time with your business and will buy more products which will be a huge benefit to your business. They will also spread positive reviews about your business which will also gain you a very good result. So, today companies are giving more priority to customer retention, i.e., customer loyalty as it will gain more profit.
Reduce Marketing Cost: Just imagine that you have to sell a product. What will you do? Before selling, you will surely perform marketing to get the attention of people. Right? And for that, you need to spend a lot. But what if your product gets more popularity before marketing? Wondering how? through “Word of mouth”!! Loyal customers are those customers who know well about your business and purchases a lot from you on a consistent basis. The main reason behind this is that they are interested in your business and this holds the key. They will recommend your business to many including their family and friends which will be a huge bonus for you. Hence, loyal customers are actually marketing your business through recommendations but they are not knowing it. Therefore your business can gain great popularity without even much marketing and this will help you to reduce marketing cost.
Upselling and Cross-Selling will be Easy: Usually, it is very difficult to perform upselling and cross-selling as you have to convince the customer a lot about your product. But if you have a loyal customer, it is not a herculean task. Loyal customers know about your products really very well and most importantly have faith in you. So without much difficulties, upselling and cross-selling can be performed.
Helps to Withstand Competitions: Competition is a category that is present in any field. The same is the case in business too. Today, there are many companies competing with each other and to fight in such a situation, loyal customers are crucial. Now you will be wondering how can loyal customers help to withstand competitions, right? Just imagine that you and your competitor have the same product. If you have better customer loyalty, then definitely it will be your product which will have a go. Thus, if you have more loyal customers, that will help you even in tough competitions.
Reduce Service Cost: This is another benefit if you have more loyal customers. Loyal customers know about your products really very well and if any common complaints occur, they can repair it on their own. Loyal customers can help other customers as well. Thinking how? Just create a community where your customers can share their views and interact with each other and loyal customers can help you through this community. This will ultimately reduce your service cost.
Improve Brand Image: If your brand is able to create trust, belief, and hope in customers, then your brand has a very good brand image. If your product possesses a brand image, then it will be a huge asset for you as people will give the main priority for that product and eventually will acquire it. Loyal customers are one of the main reasons for a good brand image as their word of mouth is a huge factor that will help a brand to achieve heights.
Helps to boost strength and eradicate weakness: For any business, there will be strengths and weaknesses. If you are able to boost your strengths and eradicate your weaknesses, you are into the path of success. Loyal customers play an important role in this process. This is mainly done through customer feedback. Remember, the feedback of loyal customers will be genuine, honest and sincere. If there is any positive, they will address and similar in the case of negative. These feedbacks can really help to boost your strengths and eradicate your weaknesses.
Conclusion
Customer Loyalty is a very crucial part of any business. To earn loyal customers is not that easy. You have to execute everything mentioned above on a consistent basis to achieve that feat. Remember, loyalty cannot be blueprinted, it cannot be produced on an assembly line. It cannot be manufactured at all, for loyalty to come out, the human heart should think and to make heart think, and you should work for that to happen. For that, you should find the best eCommerce Web Developing Company to make your eCommerce website so attractive. Once you do it, you start getting customers. And if you achieve customer loyalty, then your business will be a magnificent garden filled with beautiful plants and flowers. Plant seeds and then you can enjoy the fruits in it. Customer loyalty is like that, if you work sincerely according to customers likes and needs, then you can attain more loyal customers and hence can make more profit. Once more remembering- the loyal customers are an asset to any business.
