Do These 6 Things to Increase Customer Loyalty

It’s been said, “sales without service is like putting money in a pocket with a hole in it.” 

Without excellent customer service, you’ll have to spend more to acquire new customers because you haven’t created loyalty with existing ones. It’s a losing proposition.

In their 2022 State of Brand Loyalty report, Yotpo found that 38.5 percent of customers have to buy five or more times from a brand before they feel loyal to it.

If your business processes aren’t driving repeat business, you’re not getting the customer loyalty you need to increase revenue without dramatically increasing costs.

The good news is repeat customers are quite profitable. The Yotpo report found that 65 percent of respondents who felt loyal to a brand would sign up for the loyalty program. And Antavo found that 80 percent of companies that measure their loyalty program report an ROI of almost 5x more than they spend.

What is customer loyalty?

What does customer loyalty look like? It’s when your customers stick with you for years, despite having lower-priced offers from competitors.

When customers say things like, “your team always makes us feel like a part of the family,” you know you’ve created loyalty.

Customers always have alternatives, so when they stick with your products and services over time, they’re showing loyalty.

Retaining customers and maintaining customer satisfaction is vital for success. Loyal customers make multiple purchases and represent your brand in a positive way, helping encourage other customers to try your products.

Why is customer loyalty important?

It takes significant effort to encourage customers to stay with you instead of switching to a competitor. However, the process unquestionably pays for itself many times over.

This is especially true in a constantly-shifting market when business is more challenging. Over 55 percent of the businesses in Antavo’s survey found customer loyalty essential or valuable in overcoming a potential recession. 

It costs more to acquire a new customer than retain an old one, but that’s not the primary reason loyalty matters. The impact on Customer Lifetime Value (CLV) is much more important. 

Some commonly-shared statistics help describe the value of your existing customers:

• 65% of your sales come from existing customers
• The probability of selling to an existing customer is 60 to 70%, while the likelihood of selling a new lead is only 5%
• Repeat customers spend at least 30% more than first-time buyers

Loyal customers also recommend your brand to others. Word-of-mouth marketing is extremely effective; you don’t have to spend a dollar to create it. You simply have to nurture loyalty among your customers.

Existing customers spend more, are more likely to purchase from you, and help market your products and services for free. 

Focusing on customer loyalty is an obvious priority.

Factors that influence customer loyalty

There are many different customer loyalty strategies. The best ones for your organization depend on what resonates most with your audience. 

Here are several factors to consider.

Solving multiple problems at once

One way to increase customer loyalty is to solve multiple problems with a single product. 

“And then you realize that you don’t build multiple products, you solve multiple problems, and the product is a vehicle to solve those problems. So the way you build your platform is you go back to the customer and say, if I were to solve more problems for you, what would that look like?”

 

–Manny Medina, CEO & Co-Founder, Outreach

Consider how you can position your product or service to solve multiple challenges for your customers, so they won’t have to look for solutions elsewhere.

Develop personalized customer service

Customer service is one of the most important drivers of customer loyalty. Over 60 percent of customers will leave a brand after a single bad experience.

However, 64 percent of business leaders say customer service positively impacts company growth, and 60 percent say it improves customer retention.

How can you personalize customer service?

• Use your customers’ names in conversations and email
• Make additional offers based on customer data that shows each customer’s unique needs
• Help each customer understand how to deploy your product or service to maximize value within their organization
• Offer eLearning modules on the advanced features of your product or service
• Provide a VIP experience for your most important customers
• Get feedback from customers and improve your products and processes accordingly

Your customer service team is on the front line and knows your customers’ struggles firsthand.

Your business can stand out—and improve loyalty—by listening to the customer service team and taking action to improve the customer experience.

Read more: 9 Customer Service Training Ideas to Improve Customer Experience

Develop a community

Around 43 percent of all websites are built on WordPress. Is it because they have incredible marketing, a visionary CEO, or an innovative pricing strategy?

Not at all.

WordPress is open source and supported by a non-profit organization. Volunteers develop and test new features. WordPress is successful because it has an incredibly broad, engaged community that supports any user anytime. 

Here’s what the WordPress fan community has done:

• Translated the WordPress platform into more than 68 languages
• Organized WordCamps, or meetups of WordPress enthusiasts, 932 times in 65 different countries
• Core contributors volunteer their time and energy to update the WordPress platform
• Plugins and WordPress themes are created by hundreds of developers to make WordPress more versatile and easy to use

That’s the power of the community surrounding a single brand. Imagine what cultivating the community around your brand could do.

When you build a community around your products and services, you create brand champions who advocate for your solutions and reduce the strain on your customer success team. 

Your customers can share solutions with each other, and you might even learn about new use cases that you can expand on.

Building a community starts by creating a space where customers can get information, share ideas, and ask questions. Consider hosting company-led Q&As for community members, offering special perks, and getting customer suggestions for new features.

Be patient and give your community space to grow, but don’t neglect it. It’s a balance, and getting customer feedback regularly is the best way to navigate the process. 

Listen to and act on customer feedback

One of the most important ways to build loyalty is to ensure your customers feel heard and valued. 

The best way to help them feel important is to ask for feedback on your products, services, and processes. Then, act on that feedback.

“People connect to stories. So you’ve got to be able to share and distribute customer stories and data,” Kristi Faltorusso, Chief Customer Officer, ClientSuccess, says. “And you can’t be afraid of customers who have a negative experience to share. A story is a story, and that’s how we learn. That’s how we get better. So invite customers to come. It’s more powerful if you hear what’s working or not from them.”

Being asked for feedback helps customers feel you care about their experience, but if you don’t act on it, you contradict that message. By consistently focusing on improving customer experience, you’ll show your customers you’re invested in their success.

Read more: How to Do More With Less & Scale Customer Success

Develop customer loyalty programs

Loyalty programs make a big difference in how consistently your customers make multiple purchases and even in referring others to your brand. Companies that run loyalty programs see almost 5x the ROI. 

 A loyalty program allows you to engage with customers and encourage them to try more of your products and services. You can offer perks that can help reduce discounting, and most importantly, you can make your customers feel like they matter to your company.

 Not only will customers buy more often and stick around longer, but customer loyalty programs give you invaluable data about what your customers like and don’t like. This can help you shape new features, products, and services with less risk.

Educate customers

Educating your customers on how to get maximum value from your products and services is another important way to drive customer loyalty. Your product or service often does more than your customer initially needs. As the customer scales, however, they start to need additional features.

 If the customer doesn’t realize your solution already includes what they’re looking for, they’ll start shopping around, and you could lose them. 

Customer education solves this problem by helping customers access a deeper understanding of your product or service over time.

When Qualified implemented a customer education program using WorkRamp, they found that trained accounts were more than twice as likely to renew and were better prepared to use Qualified to grow their pipeline. 

Education can include customer certifications, eLearning courses, videos, quizzes, and more.

When you offer customer education, you’re helping your customer base experience and implement the full value you provide. This gives them another reason to stay with you instead of going to a competitor.

Read more: How to Use Customer Education to Improve Customer Experience

Start building customer loyalty today

If you’re tired of high customer churn rates, it’s time to build customer loyalty. The strategies we mentioned are a great place to start, but you’ll need the right tool for initiatives like customer education.

The Customer Learning Cloud from WorkRamp can help you improve customer retention and build loyal brand advocates. 

Want to learn more about how to build customer loyalty with the Learning Cloud? Contact us to schedule a free, personalized demo.