Secrets in keeping clients is thinking about how high Is your Loyalty Factor is. How can we get more loyal clients to buy what we have to sell?
Originally posted on December 8, 2007
How often do we stop to think, “How we can get more loyal clients/customers to buy our products and services?” I am sure many times.
If you only just tweaked a couple of things in what you do, it is more than likely there will be an increase in the loyalty of your clients.There are several ways to increase customer loyalty. Below are a few suggestions that may not be new to you. Taking some action will give you inspiration to take a close look at what you are doing now to improve your business for tomorrow.
Take a moment to think about how your loyalty behavior is based on your current favorite companies where you buy goods and services. What makes you loyal to them? What did they do to gain your loyalty? The secret in gaining loyal customers is not a secret at all, you simply do the same as those companies that have gained your loyalty.
Offer A Try Before You Buy
This is what some software companies do – only they call it shareware. Like a one month subscription for free.
Offering a free trial has benefits for both the consumer and the service. The service benefits from having more users. It helps them fine-tune offerings so that they are tailored to the intended audience. The consumer benefits from the offerings because they can make an educated decision on whether or not the service is ideal for them.
Offer Bonuses
Just make sure it is a real bonus. Sometimes we, as marketers, get so excited about showing off someone else or their products that it really isn’t a bonus for us. Although bonuses are a great way to entice potential new customers, it’s not necessarily good as an opener for your own products and services. You do have to plan the bonuses carefully in order to gain trust – so make sure the bonus works for both you and your customer. You want loyalty to your product and services not the one that is being offered as a bonus.
Ask your subscriber base for their opinion
About how you can improve. Ask subscribers questions that give an insight on how to entice them to be more loyal. Remember, Just Ask!
Show that you care
Let your customers know you appreciate them. Nominate them for an award – if you cannot find an award, create one. Profile them in your newsletter. For example Heart@Work has been presenting Kindness Hero Awards since 2001. Over 33 people have been nominated and presented. Most people have said, “It’s an honor” or “I usually have customers complaining, not giving me an award.” Genuine appreciation is from your heart to theirs.
Improving your loyalty factor is a key to growing your business and maintaining the customers you already have. To be successful at increasing the loyalty factor, try the points listed in this article. It’s all about the little things you do to keep relationships alive and well that count. You could increase your loyalty factor by 10% with just a little effort.
Comments:
Mrs. Micah
December 9th, 2007 at 2:34 pm
This is a very good list–if I were treated this way as a customer, I’d certainly be loyal.
Some additional ways I’ve found to build loyalty for my blog are:
1. Responding to comments. Not every comment all the time, but it gets good conversation going and it’s a way that my site can be engaging, not just me talking at people and people talking back at me.
2. Visiting my commenter’s blogs. I try to visit their blogs and even subscribe if they comment regularly.
3. Doing social networking favors for active commenters. When I visit their blogs, I keep an eye out for posts I can Stumble (since I’ve found that generates the most traffic), save to Delicious, or occasionally Digg.
Obviously, these are more blog-oriented.
Visitor loyalty is a very important factor for all sites. In our case, which is different to a blog, we’ve found that email notifications work well, provided they’re balanced in terms of the number that’s sent. Members like to be notified about what’s going on, but they get upset with 20 emails a day.
As Mrs. Micah said, “Try to reply to comments or questions quickly and effectively. If you get a bad-tempered email or comment, reply politely and professionally. Written communication does not include the non-verbal body language that face-to-face communication so it can be disarmingly easy to miss-construe what someone has written.”
If you’re running a site, try to include items that personalise it for users. For example, “Welcome back Paul Allen” kinds of messages. One idea from another blog was to use a Joke of the Day (or week, or month). This could be extended into a competition for people to submit and vote. Lots of ideas, but the main thing is to increase visitor loyalty by having more people engage with you.
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