We’ve all had those impressive experiences with brands where we want to shout out to the world about how great they are, or at least, I know I have.

Whether it’s to praise the product’s quality, the customer service or even some witty posts on social media, these little things all count towards creating a strong brand image, and make customers, like me, want to return.

Of course, it’s important to reach out to new customers to grow your brand, however, according to https://www.invespcro.com/blog/great-customer-experience/, it’s 7 times more expensive to acquire a new customer than it is to retain one.

So let’s get to it… here’s the complete guide on how you too can boost loyalty and retain your customers.

1 - Give Great Customer Service

With the competitive environments that businesses face, giving great customer service can make all the difference when it comes to boosting your customer loyalty.

We’re not just talking about your customers being ‘always right’ but it’s all about treating your customers like family. Knowing that they can talk to your customer services team, and them knowing that their problems will be listened to and solved to the best of your ability.

Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon said, “If you do build a great experience, customers tell each other about that. Word of mouth is very powerful.” Though this is extremely positive when you have a happy customer, customers who have had a bad experience with your business needs to be managed as well. Your customer service team reflects the values of your business and can turn a negative into a positive note.

When it comes to getting in contact with a business, customers don’t ask for much. Simply ensure that it is easy, you have accurate information on your website & ensure that you respond in a timely manner.

Having a live chat feature including human or /blog/using-artificial-intelligence-in-retail-ecommerce/ is one way to stand out from the crowd. In a study conducted by https://www.superoffice.com/blog/response-times/, they found that the average response was 12 hours, which is way above the 1-hour time frame that customers expect. By integrating your website with a live chat feature, it ensures that your customers can have some form of contact almost immediately, therefore helping you boost your customer satisfaction when it comes to problem-solving. With this in mind, let’s swiftly move on to our next point…

2 - Don’t Leave Your Customers Hanging

There’s nothing worse than waiting for what seems like an eternity to receive a response- especially if you’re looking to solve a problem or issue. By investing in a good Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system, you can ensure that all of your customer correspondence is all in one main hub, making it more efficient and easier for you to reply to your customers promptly.

Just a handful of popular CRM systems include:

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3 - Don’t Spam!

Though it’s nice for businesses to stay in contact with their customers, being bombarded by emails, text messages, posts and notifications are not at the top of anyone’s list.

As they say, less is more and in this case, it’s completely true. Before sending out customer communication, ask yourself these 3 questions:

Is it something my customers will be interested in?

Finding that balance in your communication can not only help you push more promotions in an ‘ethical’ way but can lower the number of unsubscribes and ultimately increase the number of loyal customers.

4 - Personalise Your Correspondence

Personalisation is key to boosting customer loyalty and all of the ‘big guys’ do it. Just take a look at Boots, Tesco and Amazon with loyalty programmes and personalisation features on their loyalty schemes and eCommerce websites.

One particular king of personalisation at the moment is https://www.thread.com/, a fashion aggregator and personal stylist. Each week they aim to fill your feed with new styles that you’ll love and you can improve your recommendations by liking and disliking items. And if that’s not enough, every Friday, you receive an email to push you to check the new outfits out of the week.

Not only will this level of personalisation help increase your conversion rates but it will help boost those levels of returning customers. The more they see that your business is taking into account their likes and dislikes, the easier shopping online will become and we all know that everybody looks for the smartest ways when it comes to shopping online.

5 - Listen To Your Customers

The ultimate resource on how you can boost customer loyalty is right at the tips of your finger- your customers. By offering surveys, and reviews and listening to what they have to say on social media channels, you can ensure that your business is giving off the right image. After all, if you understand what makes your customers tick based on actual data rather than intuition and guesstimating, you will be able to optimise their journeys throughout your entire website based on facts.

Some of the most popular review systems include https://business.feefo.com/ and https://www.yotpo.com/platform/reviews/.

6 - Reward Their Loyalty

Don’t just stop at giving your customers a great experience when shopping with you, but go one step further and reward them for their loyalty. This is a great way to incentivise loyalty and push for returning customers.

According to the https://info.bondbrandloyalty.com/2017-loyalty-report, 81% of customers said that loyalty programmes make them more likely to return to a brand to do business. And we can see why this is. Not only are reward cards a constant brand reminder, but they can provide a reason for customers to shop with you rather than your competitors. For instance, if I needed to purchase a health and beauty product, I will usually go to Boots even if they aren’t the cheapest place, purely because their reward card is the most generous in the UK.

If loyalty programmes aren’t something that is offered in your business model, then there’s one other word that comes to mind, and it’s freebies.

It’s a fact that freebies never get old and by creating a campaign which enables people to get something back from you is not only great publicity but also helps you show that you value their custom.

This year, Costa decided to reward people with a free hot drink when you go to one of their express stores to celebrate International Coffee Day. Though retailers were divided with whether this was a good idea, most customers seemed to appreciate the fact that they could get a nice hot beverage for nothing.

7 - Fine Tune Your User Experience Online

Though it’s difficult to control customer loyalty, your website can play a huge part in whether people decide to shop with you or not – especially when they’re looking to purchase products online.

There are some simple things that you can do, which will drastically improve your online visitors’ experiences:

Have white space on your website

Be Transparent & Consistent

Transparency is key to build trustworthiness, and with trust comes loyalty. Whether it’s talking about delivery charges, a return policy or even how you will be using data, being an eCommerce retailer who embraces transparency can be a unique factor for your business, and help make you stand out from the crowd.

Though our guide gives you the best tips on how you can boost your customer loyalty, you have to earn customer loyalty, and it doesn’t just happen overnight. You must be consistent and ensure that your customers feel valued throughout the entire process of their journey, whether it’s before, during or after they’ve purchased from you.

The Complete Guide to Boosting Customer Loyalty