9 great ways to build customer loyalty

All company executives believe that having loyal customers is a key to business success. However, what are executives really doing about it? Most will point to their customer care training or CRM system and say, "That's how we take care of loyalty here." Some will also point to their monthly newsletter or discount program to demonstrate their efforts. All of these are good attempts. However, they are not enough.


Companies are losing customers at a staggering rate without really hearing from most of them or understanding why. For example:
• Each year, the average company loses 10 to 15 percent of its customer base, according to Bain & Company.
• 84 percent of customers who leave do so because of poor service.
• A typical business only hears from 4 percent of its dissatisfied customers -- the other 96
percent leave, 91 percent for good, according to Jim Barnes, author of Secrets of CRM.

Today, companies need to go beyond customer satisfaction to build loyalty and engagement.

Below are eight ways to increase customer loyalty to help companies keep valuable customers coming back. By identifying what drives customer loyalty and engagement, you can begin to develop best practices that will have a direct impact on customer retention and profits:

1. Give Customers more than they expect: Companies need to first identify and understand customer expectations; then provide value for the dollars spent in terms of product quality and service; then find a way to go the extra mile and add perceived value to your offer. This is fundamental.

2. Turn Complaints into Opportunities: Quickly resolve customer complaints to build loyalty and show them you care. Monitor things like time to resolution and customer satisfaction levels once complaints are resolved. Bear in mind, that customer will be more impressed with you if they had a problem and it has been resolved quickly, efficiently and to their complete satisfaction, more than if they didn’t have a problem at all!

3. Engage Customers in a Two-Way Dialogue: Gather feedback consistently from multiple sources, respond to feedback quickly and personally; then organize feedback to track results. An engaged customer is more than satisfied and more than loyal. They go out of their way to show their association with your company. They also support you during both good and bad times because they believe what you have to offer is superior to others.

Engagement takes your customer beyond passive loyalty to become an active participant and promoter of your product. Engaged customers will give you more feedback - and you should be ready to handle it. All this translates into a customer who will spend more money with you over time.

o Listen to customer feedback from comment cards, letters, phone calls and surveys.
o Respond quickly and personally to concerns of high interest to your customers.
o Organize unstructured feedback for tracking and trending over time.
o Trust your customers to tell you what the problem is.
o Use statistical techniques to discover which action items will have the most impact on your business outcomes.

4. Build Opportunities for Repeat Business: Monitor what customers request most and offer services that complement other purchases. Use in-house or outsourced technology to track, classify and categorize open-ended feedback.
Monitor what customers request most and offer products or services that compliment other purchases. In addition, exceed expectations by driving product development to offer more value for less cost. Use technology to track, classify and categorize open-ended feedback.

Be acutely responsive to customer questions, comments and complaints. Often, these are your most loyal customers. If you resolve a complaint quickly, you can actually grow loyalty and drive more business

5. Survey Customers and Solicit Feedback: Use short surveys that are unbiased (third party research companies) and well structured. Employ random sampling to avoid survey fatigue.

6. Create a Centralized System for Managing Feedback: Technology can help to centralize surveys and customer feedback and track both qualitative and quantitative information. The technology can be implemented in house as a software package, web-based application, or out-sourced completely.

7. Tie Customer Loyalty and Engagement to Business Outcomes: Track customer feedback over time and compare with revenues and profits over that same period. Determine how outcome should be measured, whether by satisfaction, likelihood to purchase again, likelihood to recommend, or other factors.

8. Use Analysis to Predict Future Loyalty: Analyse information to reveal the most important area of focus for customer loyalty and how it changes over time. Use feedback data to understand client intentions and motivations.

9. Ask for Help
Following these steps may not be the easiest process, but stay focused and keep your eye on the goal. Increasing your engagement and loyalty equals increasing profits and a strong competitive edge.

Seek help if needed by choosing a partner who has the technology, best practices and experience in place and readily available. The rewards will be great.

For more information, visit http://www.continuityprograms.com.au.

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