7 Ways to Maintain Customer Satisfaction and Loyalty
Customer satisfaction and loyalty is one of the most important factors for many businesses, especially those that focus on B2C marketing. As a business owner, you don’t just want to keep getting new customers, but you also want to retain your existing ones. If your customers are satisfied, they will most likely to re-purchase your products or services. Vice versa, if they are not satisfied with the products and services you provide, they will be reluctant to return to you and they may also share the negative feedback with other people.
Do you realize that the cost of acquiring new customers is higher than that of retaining the existing ones? If your current customers are satisfied, then your chances of getting new ones are getting bigger. Your loyal customers will most likely spread your business to the world. So, how do you keep your current customers? Look at these seven tips on maintaining customer satisfaction and loyalty!
1. Improve Your Employee Professionalism
This first step is very important to you, especially if you supervise many employees. As a business owner, you are obliged to guide all your employees to work professionally. Notice how your staff is dealing with your customers. Give them constructive suggestions on what they need to fix or improve.
2. Follow Up with Your Customers
Don’t ignore your customers once they finish purchasing your products or services. You want them to keep coming back to you, don’t you? Thus, it is important for you to follow up with them. A simple thank-you through SMS or email can put a smile on their face. You can also ask them to rate and review your products or services.
3. Improve Your Brand Quality
You may not expect your customers to come back if they are not even satisfied with your products or services. This is why follow-ups are so important, because they can help you know how satisfied your customers are with the quality of your brand. You can analyze the ratings given by your customers and then think of ways to improve the quality of your products or services.
4. Be Charitable
Your customers will feel good when they are invited to be part of positive society. Show your customers that you are also concerned about environmental or social issues. You can promote a Go Green program to your customers by removing plastics and replacing them with paper bags or offering reusable bags to them. You can also work with an NGO and invite your customers to make donations.
5. Offer Customer Loyalty Programs
This method is commonly used by retail and restaurant businesses. The purpose of loyalty programs is to reward your loyal customers for regularly making purchases. You can offer them membership cards and give them points every time they make a purchase. The points will benefit them since they can be redeemed for various goods or services you offer.
If you want to offer a more unique customer loyalty program, you can even make one that makes use of an app. The more transactions your customers make, the higher their points. They can later use them to get discounted products. Your customers will be even more tempted if you also offer VIP or tiered loyalty programs that provide special treatment for the members.
6. Personalize Your Marketing
You may find this method onerous, but even world’s top retailers like Target implement this method to retain their customers. Ask your employees to record your customer profiles. Send them emails to introduce them to your latest products or services and remind them to return to you. You can also send them emails on special days such as Valentine’s and Christmas. You can even send them birthday wishes and give them special birthday offers.
7. Create Social Media Contests
Your customers are often high-potential buyers who need certain moments to buy your products. Sometimes, you need to remind them to return to you. In addition to sending them SMS and emails, you can also try to retain them by creating social media contests.
Social media contests are very easy and fun to do. You can create a photo competition that features your customers with your products and offers attractive prizes to the winners. Your customers who have repeatedly made purchases from you would most likely participate in this fun program. As an option, you can also create this competition only for those who already own membership cards.
To help you maintain your customer satisfaction and loyalty, you can invest in a customer management system that has been used by many companies of all sizes. This system helps you do retargeting and remarketing, send personalized or mass emails, log conversations with your customers and many more.
Do you know any other ways to maintain customer satisfaction and loyalty? Share your opinions and advice in the comments.
Also read: 7 Common Mistakes That Can Ruin Your Retail Business