The Three Steps Companies Employ To Gain Loyal Customers
Customer loyalty is something businesses go to great lengths to win over, against competitors and partners alike. Of course, the higher the level of loyalty a company is able to draw from its customers, the easier it is for such figures to translate into sales values – which is the ultimate target.
How do companies ensure that their customers remain loyal? It is the billion-dollar question with a three – pronged answer.
- Business Model
- Advertising
- Customer loyalty rewards
Listed above are the three ways in which companies draw loyalty from customers. Before discussing each in detail, it is pertinent to note that the success of these methods is in their combined usage. Meaning that one in its own is not nearly enough to keep customers coming back.
Business Model Approach.
Many businesses (and sometimes whole industries) are modelled such that there are many different channels through which customers can be bought over. The Internet makes it possible to do this seamlessly with many a firm dedicated to finding customers for other businesses.
Take the relationship between Online Travel Agencies (OTAs) and hotel chains for example. The former is the Internet source of customers who need the services of the latter. Both businesses are modelled such that one feeds the other with customers, and loyalty to either of them is business for both sides. If a customer for example, is highly impressed with the OTAs service and would like it again, that is good business for the hotel too. If it is the hotel that has blown the customer’s mind, they are more likely to return to the OTA that got them the booking in the first place.
Advertising
The sheer value of advertising spend by different companies in all walks of life today, just serves to highlight the importance of the aid-to-trade. Individual companies spend billions of dollars every year to showcase and introduce their products and services to new customers as well as to refresh the minds of existing customers as to their existence.
In our world today, a company that fails to advertise will soon find itself in the gutters; failing to advertise enough is even a more dangerous policy.
A number of companies earmark as much a one-third of their profit for advertising in the next financial year. Why is this so? Because advertising is how customers know what they’re up to, how they have gotten better and why they (customers) should come again. This is how loyalty is built.
Customer Loyalty Rewards.
The final piece of the jigsaw is rewards for loyal customers. When all is said and done and customers have displayed loyalty, it is up to the company now to show them loyalty back.
Loyalty is rewarded in many ways. Coupons, discounts, freebies, etc. The list is endless. The more innovative a business can get in rewarding loyal customers, the better.
Source: https://www.phocuswire.com
