While every website wants to attract new customers, when it comes to long-term value, customer loyalty is vital. In financial terms alone, acquiring a new customer can be five times as expensive as retaining an existing one. What’s more, if you can increase loyalty by 5%, this can raise profits by more than a quarter. So, how do you increase customer loyalty? Here we look at some of the most effective strategies websites use today.
Contents
Customer experience (CX)
Customer experience is one of the driving forces behind customer loyalty, indeed, research has shown that 86% of shoppers will pay up to 16 % more for great customer experience and many are willing to change brands because of it .
CX covers a wide range of topics, including everything from fast loading times and easy navigation to streamlined checkouts and customer support. One of the most important aspects, as far as websites are concerned, is personalisation. Using product recommendation engines that analyse user data (purchasing histories, pages visited, on-site search terms, etc.), and utilising this to display products, services and content that individual customers might be interested in, is highly appealing to website visitors and very helpful in enticing them back to the website. AI is now making these recommendations even more personalised.
Customer support has always been a key factor in CX. One of the issues for businesses is that it can be very expensive to deal with customer service issues quickly enough to satisfy the demands of modern consumers. AI-enabled chatbots have played an important part in overcoming this as they can deal with large numbers of customers simultaneously, limit the number of human agents needed and are cost-effective. Going forward, however, research from Gartner shows that 40% of today’s younger customers actually prefer rep-free self-service without the need for human-assisted support . With regards to loyalty, many Gen Z customers will stop using a business if they can’t resolve an issue by themselves. This means businesses will need to build customer support into their websites and identify the areas where support weaknesses impact CX.
For more information, read: How to Enhance Customer Experience on Your Online Store
Loyalty programmes
Loyalty programmes have been used by businesses since as far back as ancient Egypt and continue to be just as effective in bringing shoppers back. However, today, they are more sophisticated and come in various forms. The most common are points-based rewards, where customers are given points for every pound they spend or each time they shop. These accumulate over time and can then be redeemed. In some cases, as with Tesco vouchers, they don’t even need to be redeemed at the same store. By partnering with other companies, Tesco enables customers to spend them on things like restaurant meals or days out, which makes the programme more appealing.
Other loyalty programmes come in the form of tiered memberships, e.g., bronze, silver and gold, with greater benefits for the higher tiers. Rewards can include early access to new products and promotions, special deals and discounts, and even birthday or anniversary treats. Of course, movement up through the tiers is based on rewarding customers for the things the business wants them to do: buying more products, reading more articles, referring more customers and so forth.
Community involvement
It is hard to leave somewhere when you are part of a social network. In the same way that visitors stay loyal to their local pub because all their mates go there, people will stay loyal to businesses where they have invested in relationships with others. Online companies can take advantage of this phenomenon by providing means for their users to interact. You can do this by creating online forums, social media pages and user groups. Alternatively, you can run virtual events, like competitions and quizzes, or enable users to contribute to your content so they feel more involved with the business and website.
Engaging content
Another strategy that many websites use to keep people coming back is to provide engaging content. While, for many businesses, this won’t be key content, like your products and services pages, it can be highly valuable for visitors and can be useful in drawing their attention to the products and services you supply.
Content often includes blog posts and videos that provide helpful information for customers, such as a review or comparison of products and how-to articles. These are also great for positioning your company as an expert in its field and, as they are indexed by search engines, for boosting SEO.
Many users will keep coming back to use interactive content, whether it’s for entertainment, like quizzes, or to help find answers to things, i.e., using tax calculators and broadband speed testers. Today, many businesses offer augmented reality (AR) tools, which let users try on virtual glasses or see what furniture would look like in their homes. All of these help to keep visitors returning to the website.
User-generated content is also helpful. As potential customers want to know how good products are, customer reviews are seen as trustworthy. Moreover, by showing them, warts and all, you improve trust in your own business while finding out which products your customers don’t like.
Considering AR? Read: Hosting Solutions for Augmented Reality Experiences
Gamification
Gamification is a newer strategy that many businesses have begun to adopt. Essentially, it turns user interaction, including shopping, into a form of game and, in doing so, encourages greater participation. A typical example here is Amazon’s audiobook platform, Audible, which gives customers achievement badges based on the number of books they have read or the number of hours they have listened. Google and Microsoft give similar rewards, the former for participating in its reviews and the latter for playing online games. With higher levels to climb and the kudos of achievement, users are naturally enticed to keep coming back. The same can be applied to shopping and becoming a Platinum VIP customer. Other websites use leaderboards as part of their gamification, publishing the usernames of their best-performing customers or participants.
Businesses can also run competitions and contests as part of their gamification strategy, such as contributor of the month, best photo or best review. It is even possible to combine gamification with rewards programmes and reward customers for reaching milestones like a set number of points or purchases.
For more information, read: Playing to Win – How to Gamify Your Online Marketing
Conclusion
Loyal customers are vital for the long-term success of a business. They spend more with your company and cost much less to retain than acquiring new customers. However, loyalty is not a given and needs to be worked on. From providing excellent customer experiences and rewarding loyalty programmes to creating communities, providing engaging content and offering the excitement of gamification, you can create powerful strategies to boost customer loyalty for your own business.
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