A Guide to Building Business Loyalty with Your Customer Base

When it comes to building business loyalty with your customers, authenticity, transparency and aligning with your customers values is critical.

Guide to Building Business Loyalty

Whatever sector you work in, generating business loyalty with your customer base is the foundation of good business.

The nature of loyalty is changing, however, as the world becomes increasingly digitized. While customers once visited the same shops, cafes, and bars because they enjoy the physical experience, online brands must find a way to keep their customers coming back for more.

Great service is essential for a competing business, but for online sellers, competition is getting tougher.

Internet retailers gained 3.8 points on the American Customer Satisfaction Index last year, indicating more companies are successfully implementing effective E-Commerce customer service strategies.

Amazon is setting the standard with policies such as one-click ordering, same-day delivery and no-hassle returns. This raises customer service expectations of online shoppers, raising the bar for everyone else to perform better.

A great place to start building and improving loyalty is with your customers’ e-commerce experience.

In eCommerce, building business loyalty can be a challenge.

The standards for E-Commerce customer service have been raised, how can you improve your E-Commerce experience to meet and exceed customer expectations?

Instead of making impressions through real-life interactions, you must rely on digital tools to provide a personalized experience and keep your audience engaged.

With this in mind, below is our guide to help you build business loyalty.

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Align with your customers’ values

 

According to recent studies, 64% of people are more likely to shop with brands whose values and beliefs align with their own.

There is a common myth that customers want relationships with brands, but according to research by the CEB, this is only true for 23% of consumers.

Other brands think that more interactions are the answer to building business loyalty, but in the era of information overload, the opposite can be true.

What people want instead is to find brands who mirror their values. This connection must be authentic, however. You shouldn’t change your ethos to appeal to a particular market without some serious consideration.

 

Offer an enhanced experience to your business customers

 

In the age of digital transformation, an enhanced customer experience means ensuring consistency across multiple touch points for both B2C and B2B customers.

In the first quarter of 2016, mobile devices accounted for 45.1 percent of all web-shopping traffic, surpassing PCs at 45 percent, according to Demandware data.

By the end of this year, mobile devices will account for 60 percent of e-shopping.

Many of these shoppers interact with companies across multiple devices. For instance, a customer might make a purchase via their smartphone but then contact customer service on their computer.

The average Internet user switches between 2-4 devices a day, so it’s essential to provide a personalized experience if you want to improve your online revenues and boost business loyalty. You can use an omni-channel software to ensure consistent engagement across multiple platforms.

For more information about what the right software can do for SAP ERP running businesses, visit omniaecommerce.com.

 

To deliver a smooth user experience to customers across all devices, the best practice is to use a virtual call center that lets customer service agents field live chat, phone and email conversations all from one application. This enables agents to maintain continuity as customers shift from one channel to another or one agent to another.

 

Streamline Tickets With Self-Service Options

Customer satisfaction is directly related to how long customers have to wait for service.

For instance, a Velaro survey found that;

30.2 percent of customers are only willing to wait 1 to 5 minutes on hold before hanging up, while 27.6 percent are only willing to wait 1 minute, and 32.3 percent aren’t willing to wait on hold at all.

One strategy you can use to reduce customer wait time is offering online self-service options.

You can handle a large percentage of frequently asked questions by including a search bar on your website along with a knowledge database with answers to FAQs. This reduces the workload on your service team, while boosting the satisfaction experienced by your customers.

Sixty-seven percent of customers prefer self-service to speaking to a representative, according to Zendesk research.

Deliver Personalized Service

[bctt tweet=”56% of customers are more likely to buy from an online retailer that recognizes them by name. ” username=”Pixel_Pro”]

Personalized service increases your appeal to online customers.

Fifty-six percent of customers are more likely to buy from an online retailer that recognizes them by name, an Accenture survey found.

Sixty-five percent are more likely to purchase from a retailer who knows their purchase history and 58 percent are more likely to buy from one who makes recommendations based on past purchases.

Using recommendation engine software to offer recommendations based on past purchases or other personal data is one way to implement personalized service.

Another strategy is making offers based on user behavior, such as offering loyalty rewards. A third personalization strategy is making geotargeted offers to customers based on location.

 

Launch a reward plan

 

Another way to keep your customers coming back for more is to reward their loyalty.

You can do this with a points system, where customers accrue points that eventually stack up to freebies or money off coupons each time they buy a new product.

Alternatively, you can launch digital incentives, such as social media hashtag campaigns or competitions. To align this scheme with your company values, you can also reward customers when they donate to specific charities. This is an excellent way of recognizing that customers care about more than just your products and that you care about more than just sales.

 

Speed Up Service With Automation

Another way you can shorten customer wait times is by deploying automation.

For instance, one customer service tool that has been growing in popularity is chatbots.

Chatbots use artificial intelligence to automatically handle customer live chat conversations. By greeting the customer with an automated script and requesting initial information, the chatbot can evaluate whether the customer’s inquiry can be answered by directing them to your FAQ section or another part of their site. If the chatbot determines the customer needs live assistance, it can route their inquiry to the right department.

By automatically handling routine parts of live chat tickets, chatbots free up your human agents to have more time to assist customers who need live help.

Another automation tool you can use to speed up phone service is interactive voice response (IVR) software.

IVR technology can answer calls with automated greetings and then take input from callers via voice or keypad in order to determine where to route their call. Routine inquiries such as requests for account information can be handled by automated responses, while inquiries requiring a live person can be routed to the right department automatically.

 

Be transparent

Transparency is probably the most important element in building business loyalty.

Studies from Label Insight suggest that 40% of customers would happily switch from their current preferred brand to another that offers more transparency.

That’s because, despite the competitive marketplace, consumers look for authenticity. They want to back a brand that generates trust, goes the extra mile and surpasses their expectations.

 

 

By putting your customers at the head of your marketing strategy, you have a higher chance of earning their loyalty. There are numerous ways to do this, but the bottom line is to be authentic, transparent and demonstrate that you are more than just a sales machine. Instead, show that what you have to offer is highly valuable and could, in some small way, transform their lives.