The customer loyalty or what is the same look for the buy / recurrent contracting of products or services of a company by consumers, has a double advantage.
The first and most obvious, it is that we guarantee an upcoming sale to the same customer. The second and equally interesting, is that a loyal customer is a satisfied customer. According to a study by Nielsen, 92 percent of consumers take into account the views of relatives or friends when making a purchase decision. Therefore, investing in customer loyalty is also investing in attracting new customers.
Lower prices, very common practice in times of crisis to retain and attract new customers, does not guarantee loyalty. If we apply techniques loyalty to the first signs of economic recovery, customers can return to brands previously used.
Therefore, there are going to see 8 ways to retain customers without entering the “price war”. Obviously, not all techniques are applicable to all markets and sectors. Each Marketing Department must decide which are applicable to your company and which are not:
Addresses their complaint and give solutions
If there is a formula applicable to all markets and sectors is customer care. Listen, address and resolve consumer problems is one of the most effective ways to build loyalty.
According to a study of the company external storage and management documentary Iron Mountain, 3 out of 4 consumers complain about the customer. Interestingly, lamayor complaint comes to having to explain the same problem with different people, over problems with the product purchased or contracted.
A proactive Service Department Customers
The Customer Service Department may be only the “Complaint Department”. This should also contact your customers interested in their satisfaction and also learn what they are waiting for the brand which are consumers.
Rewarding loyalty, anniversaries celebrated with them
Especially in the casae of hiring, celebrating anniversaries with them. These celebrations can be adapted to the pockets of the marketing budgets of each company:
- An e-mail thanking you for your trust
- Appreciate your loyalty by mail with a letter
- Have a detail with them and send some movie tickets or a gift, etc…
Everything depends on the budget that we can invest.
Do not be a bad mother and a good stepmother
This expression as ours has been practiced by many companies, rewarding new customers over the customers they already have. As a technique of acquiring new customers it is fine, but do not forget the customers you already have.
According to a study everilion, company specialized in offering SaaS applications, capture a new customer costs to small and medium-sized enterprises 6 times more than retaining an old one. Therefore, measures and evaluates your resources where you are more interested in investing, if loyalty techniques or harvesting techniques.
Pay attention to competition
Your customers will ask what your competition offers. Watch it. Do not wait for your customers who are what have you. Stay one step ahead! Perhaps you cannot match the offer in all cases but perhaps, in some you can even improve it. Many times it is a matter of detail that budget.
Do not disappoint their expectations
Pay what you promise and do not promise more than you can deliver. Once you have defrauded a client is very difficult to regain their trust. Perhaps you will deceive the first time, but almost certainly, there will be a second chance.
Contact them and Keep them informed
Consider your customers and your partners. After all, a sale is a transaction not only economic, but also confidence. Therefore, let them share in your successes or all those aspects that you think can make them know you better. Some companies make great efforts, to give some examples, corporate social responsibility or R & D + i, whom their customers never get to know.
Not all customers are equal. Segments
Not all customers are “good” customers. There are customers, for example, that accumulate complaints well above the average. If once studied you think not justified in full and calculate the cost of their loyalty, perhaps you consider that is a client that did not make up keep.
A good customer deserves a better deal than one that is not. It is not mistreat the “bad” client. It is simply not applying the techniques of loyalty to everyone equally. Do not forget that is so unfair treat equals unequally, and the unequal equally.
And you what techniques you consider interesting customer loyalty, without entering the “price war”?