The thrill of charting out a business plan and acquiring new customers by implementing it is certainly enthralling. However, as your business grows this should not be the only thrill that keeps you busy. Sadly, many like to keep enjoying this new found thrill resulting in the doom of the business.
Yes, it is true that you need to acquire new customers for your product or service. However, the fact remains that the long-term success of the business depends on attracting customers to buy more from you. A business that fails in retaining its customers is like a balloon that has a hole in it. You can keep filling it with as much air as you want, it is sure to never inflate. So, how do you plug that hole and attract your customers to return and buy more from you? Keeping marketing aside, the answer lies in customer experience and building trustworthy relationships with them, with the objective of creating brand loyalty.
Here are a few key steps that you can implement in your business:
1. Happy Employees, Happy Customers
Your employees are practically the face of the business, and the experience that your customers will have when buying something from you depends on your employees. If your employees are happy working with you, it will automatically reflect in their customer service, in turn providing a pleasant customer experience. This pleasant experience is what will motivate the customer to return to your business to buy more from you.
So, before building a relationship with your customers, build one with your employees. Keep them motivated and satisfied with incentives, and make their work challenging enough so that they are pleased with their efforts.
2. Make Your Business Motto Clear
Every contact that a customer has with your business adds to the overall effect of their customer experience. At the end of the day it is not just your sales team that is responsible for good customer experience. Your whole business should reflect a common ideology and objective. So help all your employees understand the objectives of your business or the business motto, and this will automatically reflect in their interactions with the customers, irrespective of sales or not.
3. Create Customer Profiles
Equip your employees with crucial information that can help them in giving your customers bespoke services and a wonderful experience. This involves creating customer profiles that can help your employees understand your customers better even before they meet them. This added advantage can help them adjust their approach when interacting with a customer, and be able to build good relationships right at the beginning.
4. Keep Communication Lines Open
Keep the lines of communication open and interact with your customers even after the first sale, or even if they are not buying from you again. Good interaction will lead to creating a bond with them and establishing brand loyalty. You can ask your customers for feedback or queries after a sale, or get feedback via a survey, on social media or from your Zendesk help center. This will help you improve your customer satisfaction capabilities or the product itself.
The interaction need not be only about the sale or the product they bought. You could also inform them about exciting offers or other information about your business via a newsletter or blog, either on a weekly or monthly basis. Personalize the experience by sending them birthday wishes or wishes for a festival. Use the power of social media to the fullest to achieve this.
5. Heed The Advice Of Your Customers
A good customer experience will certainly attract them back to the business for more. But, nobody likes a business selling a product that they don’t like or don’t need at all. Their returning to the business could be in vain without having useful products that they can buy. So, think about what product or service can complement the product that they have already bought. You could also use their valuable feedback to create a new product that is specifically designed for them and that they will love purchasing. You are in a way giving to them, rather than selling!
Remember, customer experience and creating a brand loyalty is one of the key steps in attracting your customers back to your business. Implement the aforementioned steps in your business, and see them storming in for more!
