One of the biggest secrets in the industry is that whilst many loyalty schemes are created to help drive loyalty, they don’t. Instead, they create a paper discount scheme. Customers will earn points, trade them in, and then leave as soon as they see a better discount from a rival. Real brand loyalty makes customers feel an emotional connection to your brand and want to avoid switching. You can do this in six ways.
Six Ways to Build Stronger Customer Relationships and Brand Loyalty
Source AI
- Encourage Second Sales
The very first sale will always be a win for the marketing team, but it’s the second sale that will create brand loyalty. Very few brands actually plan this with intention. Once the customer has made their first purchase, they are at the peak of their attention. Most brands will respond with either nothing or a discount offer.
A much better approach would be to create a smooth onboarding process that gives them real value. Check in with them when they’re likely to have a question. Invite them to come back, assuming there is a relationship. Brands that think through this post-purchase journey (often working with a customer journey agency) often find that the first 90 days will determine if the customer is a repeat or one-off.
- Make it Easy to Do Business With You
Brand loyalty can be quite basic. It’s all about reducing friction. Every extra click, form fill, and support interaction will eat away at the trust you need to gain in the future. Customers don’t often switch because they’re impressed by a competitor. They switch due to the hassle.
Audit your processes. Are returns taking 2 minutes? Can they reorder in 1? Is your support personal, and does it remember the conversation they had? From the customer’s point of view, they are having to contact you twice and start from the beginning both times. Whilst not exciting, making everything easy will give you customers who will tolerate you, rather than recommend you. Nobody will recommend a hassle.
- Be a Real Person
Most brand communications are just noise. Customers have become super efficient at filtering out the noise. What makes it through are messages that sound like they’ve been written by a real person who knows the customer and have real value.
Tone becomes an important factor in increasing revenue. Brands that customers feel loyal to will have a consistent, valuable, and personable tone throughout. It’s not as easy as it sounds, so some brands will outsource to experts. You can use brand communication agency services whose whole job it is to ensure your brand has its own real voice. If you have the same tone in your shipping email as you did in your launch campaign, you are showing your customers something real about your brand, and they’ll notice.
- Reward the Right Behaviors
Traditional points schemes reward customers for spending. This is only half the story and the shallow half. Many of the behaviors that will create loyalty, referrals, reviews, engagement, feedback, premium tier selection, and extra effort to stay with you won’t be rewarded at all, as they don’t appear on a receipt.
Rewards should be adapted. Reward the 5th purchase differently from the first. Surprise your long-term customers with an unexpected free gift. Free gifts create more emotion than discounts. Give them real status. Early access, real prioritization, and real benefits. The aim is to create a give-and-take scenario, and this comes from making them feel valued.
- Listen to Complaints
Complaint channels can be goldmines for loyalty. Customers who complain and receive a great resolution will be more loyal to you than those who didn’t have any issues. This may seem crazy, but decades of research into service shows this to be true. Conversely, customers that don’t complain and are slightly disappointed will just leave. This will show on your dashboard as market conditions.
Respond to feedback. This is one of the most loyalty-creating statements in commerce. “You asked, and we changed it”. Also pay attention to how different segments of customers feel about your brand. Loyalty expectations differ much more between generations and communities than most companies think. To read a room like this, you will need real research.
- Be Consistent
Customers will develop long-term attachments to identities. Your brand will give them this as a sports team would. However, this can only happen if your values are consistent. If you’re pushing a cause for a quarter and then go quiet the next month, you aren’t giving them an identity; you’re giving them content.
Consistency comes from keeping your values throughout. Being generous with your refund policy despite it being abused, keeping the same high standards despite increased costs, and keeping your tone personable during the worst week of the year. Customers will be watching these moments to see if your values were real or just a gimmick.
End Point
Building loyalty that drives repeat business is about creating an overall positive experience. Customers will feel personally welcomed during their second sale, interactions will be effortless, communications will come from a real person, you’ll reward the right behaviors, feedback will drive visible changes, and your values will remain consistent. None of these six points require a large budget, but all require consistency. This is the real scarce resource in modern marketing. By winning the second sale and treating the relationship as such, you’ll turn repeat business from a KPI into a habit.
