Customer loyalty is positively connected to how satisfied a customer is with their experience by using your company or service. A customer’s satisfaction means that they are consistently pleased and are in favour of your brand and what you have to offer. A loyal customer base is when they purchase products exclusively, all the time and they are not willing to compromise what they prefer over a competitive company.
Loyalty to a brand works in correlation to the quality of the product or service which is on offer. The success rates of the company have to be reliable to continue keeping their existing and returning customer base and as a result, increase customer loyalty. Often company’s reward their existing and loyal customers by giving them personalised offers and personalised rewards which express appreciation. When you show your customers such appreciation, they feel valued and if they feel valued they will continuously come back.
WHY IS CUSTOMER LOYALTY IMPORTANT?
Think back to the time that you as a customer went back to the products you love the most, there’s a high chance that you will return to it again. If you had a good experience and had customer satisfaction even if you had some trouble with their product/service you will still go back to them.
Branding your service/product positively, giving amazing customer service and expressing value for your customers will inevitably maintain that loyalty which you receive from them.
LOYALTY IS STRENGTH
Of course, without a doubt customers who continuously come back benefit the business because you gain more subtle benefits rather than just the obvious. Some describe a business as a bucket where customers flow in and fill the bucket like liquid would do. Now, visualise that you have a hole in the bucket and your customers are falling through. Why? Because of poor service, poor products and poor expression of value. You have to fix and patch up the ‘hole’ as a whole to retain the loyal customers you still do have.
HOW DO YOU MEASURE CUSTOMER LOYALTY?
You measure customer loyalty by examining their behaviours, those who return and your ROI. Loyal customers will increase their purchases from you, they will stay longer and will increase your brand awareness by referring family/friends.
There are a few ways which you can measure your loyalty base:
- Lifetime Value (LTV)
This is the amount of customers who have spent their finances with you since the very beginning to their latest purchase. You measure this by how they repetitively purchase from you. - Churn rate
The definition of churn rate is the customers who you lose. Now, as important as it is to measure the customers you gain, it is equally important to acknowledge the customers you lose and do something about it. - Referrals
This point is quite self- explanatory. It is possible to track this by using word of mouth or as many providers do these days… A referral code. Customers who refer another are much more valuable than those who only buy once.
Last but not least there are six stages of customer loyalty:
- Awareness – The customer is conscious of your company and what you have to offer
- Research – The customer is considering buying and has viewed your website as well as purchased your products amongst other competitors
- Buying – The customer has bought your products or services that you are offering
- Use – The customer uses the service that they purchased consistently
- Repeat – The customer purchases from your company continuously
- Referral – The customer refers to friends or family to your company
