When we think about loyalty, we immediately think about repeat purchases and rewards programs. But is that what loyalty to a company, a product, a service, a brand really is for a customer?
Loyalty is an outcome from a set of customer experiences. And loyalty is a factor that helps form a relationship beween your company and its custsomers. And loyalty can be measured in many ways. Here, we will leverage
What’s challenging about loyalty is that it happens between the consumer and company through so many experiences during the decision-making process, purchase, and product use. Each touchpoint has an element of loyalty building. So, measuring repurchase or engagement is only one indicator of loyalty—the indicator of purchase. There are so many other expressions of loyalty during the entire customer lifecycle. So, what other measurements exists? And what’s loyalty anyway? We review that here.
Customers return because they had a great experience that they want to repeat. And that’s loyalty. And it is reciprocal. Customers love a company so much and the company loves its customers so much that it creates this respectful, compassionate relationship that benefits both. These customers not only connect to your brand emotionally; they see themselves as being part of it. And to top it off, when customers have a good experience with your company, they naturally want to share the value you provide with friends so they can have a good experience too.
This set of videos will provide some advice on how you could measure these qualities in your company conversations and interactions outside of purchasing to determine if loyalty exists. You can also discover if you aren’t allowing or encouraging your customers to communicate their loyalty to you, or if they are, understand how you may be able to recognize their loyalty sooner and develop a deeper relationship with them.
Content is a type of conversation that provides advice. And when a customer gets advice, they perceive your company as directly adding value to their lives in some way. As we’ve discussed in other videos, loyalty is an aspect of a customer relationship, developed over time through such conversations and customer experiences that add value to someone’s life.
Use this analysis to identify opportunities for building customer relationships and loyalty. Here, you will be analyzing less about the caller him or herself, and more about the conversation content, using content analysis approaches. From this analysis work, you can gain insight into the customer relationship.
To measure if, and how, your customers see the brand as an extension of themselves, you need to first understand who your customers are and what they are like as people. You also should have gathered metrics and analytics from various touchpoints along your company’s customer journeys that inform you about their behaviors and actions with your company. You can correlate such information with your brand values to determine which aspects of your company and product experiences appeal to your customers and why some don’t. You can also gain insight into how to adjust your experiences so your customers can connect to your company better.
Sharing experiences is a natural activity of a loyal customer. Who doesn’t want to share their joy and happiness over getting a problem solved in a great way? But it’s hard for a customer to share that if you don’t provide them the opportunity to do so in the way they prefer to share. Look at the data and discover trends about your customers to find not only the best way for your most loyal customers to share their experiences but identify the customer personas who are most likely to do that. Balance the purchase and loyalty experiences to engage customers and build your customer community. Become their preference that they want to share rather than a convenient option.
If you can track a customer’s path from social media to a web site to purchase and beyond and observe what an individual reads and accesses for content along the way, you can gain amazing insight into the various conversations you were having with that person. In the end, as we know, content is a type of conversation that provides advice. And when a customer gets advice, they perceive your company as directly adding value to their lives in some way. As we’ve discussed in other videos, loyalty is an aspect of a customer relationship, developed over time through such conversations and customer experiences that add value to someone’s life.
There are six signs that your employees may not be currently capable of creating a relationship with customers to build loyalty. Note that everything listed here can be repaired and reversed with training and a shift in cultural thinking. They are warning signs, red flags, of a steep decline in the quality of your customer experiences. But if you observe these trends early enough, you have time to make the appropriate adjustments in your company and culture to reverse course and to create a customer community.
Who wants to see your company succeed? You may think only the employees, management, the board of directors, and the investors do, but most likely, many more stakeholders do. This group may be broader to include people who are and who are not your customers, including influencers and even general fans.
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