Customer loyalty can make or break your business. A loyal customer isn’t just someone who will buy from you time and again. They will also publicly talk about your business, defend you against criticism, refer their friends and family to your business, and in general do everything in their power to help you win.
How can you cultivate more customer loyalty? How do you create a culture around your brand that people want to help?
Connect with Your Customers Regularly
The companies with the most loyal customers are those companies that connect with their customers often. That means you are not just a distant brand or a faceless organization. You are real people behind a real business creating real value in the world. This connection can be through a company blog, through Twitter, through Facebook, through email or through in-person events. The more your customers feel as though they have a connection with you, the more loyal they will be.
Always Think and Talk in WIIFY Terms
WIIFY, or “What’s In It for You,” basically means you’re always putting the customer first. Instead of doing what might make your company the most money in the short term, you plan your business around what would benefit the customers most. Your customers will notice. Anytime you write a blog post, make sure your readers and customers will get something from it. This may seem obvious, but so many bloggers make the mistake of posting just what is interesting to them or their company, rather than writing something that will genuinely improve the lives of their readers. Always, always put the customer first. Think in “What’s In It for You” terms.
Ask for Feedback
How do you always deliver what the customer wants? By asking! Before you can deliver what they want, you have to first be absolutely certain about what it is they want. Feedback can take the form of surveys, focus groups or just a simple telephone call. Even if you have thousands of customers, you can still learn a lot just by picking up the phone and calling half a dozen of your most loyal buyers.
Over Deliver
In the end, it is only your product that matters. It has been said again and again that at the end of the day, your product is your brand. Marketing can help increase sales in the short term, but in the long term, the quality of your product(s) will become known on the marketplace. Make a great product and over deliver and that will be your reputation. The reverse is also true. If you want people to truly be loyal to your brand, then do everything you possibly can to over deliver.
If you do these four things – connect regularly, think in WIIFY terms, ask for feedback and strive to over deliver – you will very quickly build a company to which your customers can be fiercely loyal.
