The True Customer Experience..... Your key to Customer Loyalty
7 Powerful Strategies on building customer loyalty.
Marketing is one of the most time consuming ways of building awareness of your business, not only that but it also eats up most of your money. As I was thinking and researching on this I read an article that emphasised the importance of focusing much of your attention on your existing clientele than putting so much energy on getting new ones and neglecting the existing ones.
In order for you to even continue to do business with your existing clients you have to build customer loyalty. Here are a few strategies that will assist you in this.
1. Give your customer the “best” customer experience.
a. You have to know that every customer counts. You have to treat each customer as though they were the only one. The moment you treat a customer badly counting on the fact that you have fifty others, you will do the same for every other customer. You also have to know that the fastest way of any information travelling is through word of mouth, treat one person badly; you would have treated a whole customer group badly.
b. First impressions count and they are lasting impressions. Give your customer a memorable first experience that they would want to relive that moment again. Make every moment as though it were their first and only time with you. As I mentioned earlier the fastest way of news travelling is through word of mouth. If you treat that one person well, they will go tell another, who will tell another and another and the cycle goes on and on till you build a huge client base of loyal customers.
2. Be Consistent
a. Within your company – Maybe your company has different divisions and departments that your customer has to go through. You have to ensure that at every level your client is treated the same way. The last thing you want is to break the chain and remember “a chain is only as strong as its weakest link”, so if one employee does not maintain the same standard of excellence that the client received in the beginning, I’m sorry to say, you would have lost your customer.
b. With every customer – The way you treat client A and client B should be the same regardless of the amount of money they bring. If A brings in over a thousand in revenues and B hundreds treat them all the same in terms of customer service. If you lose a few Bs you would have lost a lot of business and remember it’s the Bs that keep your business alive through the hard times. A’s are usually once off purchases.
c. At all times – You need to treat your customers extremely well at all times, the treatment you gave them on Monday should be the same they receive on Friday. The treatment they receive this year should be the same they receive five years from now, if anything exceed it and outdo yourself by giving them better treatment than before.
3. Train your front line Employees
You need to train all the employees that face the customer on the best way to interact with your customers. At times you lose clients not because your product does not sell itself but your untrained employee has not represented you well. Develop systems, policies and procedure of how things are to be done and train your employees on that. If you cannot train them yourself outsource from people who do so, make clear your specifications and your expectations.
Your employees should have knowledge of all information. The most frustrating thing that a customer cannot stand is an employee who does not know anything about the company they work for.
4. Give your customers personalised experience.
Every customer wants to feel special and important, if you are able to give them that personalised experience then why not. You have to know your customers, you cannot keep forgetting their name and calling them ‘sir’ or ‘mam’ at all times; if your know their name then call them by that name, trust me ‘good morning Mrs Jones’ sounds a whole lot better than ‘good morning mam’. If you have time attend to your client unlike throwing them off to lower level subordinates. Customers see that and they want your attention, as I said every customer wants to feel special.
5. Follow Up; get feedback and act on it.
The customer experience with you should not be a hit and run; you should take time to follow up on your customer, find out how they are finding your product or service, if they need any help. Allow your customers to give you constructive feedback on how you can improve your product or service. Don’t just listen to the feedback, act on it, do something about it and show your customer that you are listening! All clients want to be heard and they also want to see that you value their opinions.
6. Look at things through the eyes of your customer
You need look at things in the perspective of your customers; take their point of view. As you get to know your customers you will also learn the way they want things and what they want. Give them what you know they want, not what you think they want. Deliver beyond their expectations and ‘wow’ them. Ask yourself, “if i were my customer right now, how would i feel about this?”
7. Reward customer loyalty
If you have customers who prove to be very loyal to you reward them for that. Give them discounts on special products or services once in a while and when special promotions arise make them the first to know.
Here’s a tip – why not design what you would call the true customer experience, try it out and see how it goes. If you have designed your true customer experience you can email me and I’ll give you my opinion and some advice.
If you need any help concerning developing marketing strategies and selling strategies for your company or a certain project get in touch with me today!
Cynthia
Mulika Strategic Management
Planning, Training, Networking and Mentoring for success
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