The Keys to Customer Loyalty and Repeat Business

When it comes to customer loyalty, perception is everything.  You may be delivering superior value to your customers, but if they don’t realize it, you may not retain their business in the long-term. The key to customer loyalty is communication.  Connect with your customer on a regular basis.  Provide surprising, unexpected levels of value.  Use every channel at your disposal, from snail mail to social media.  Build a wall around them so when new competition comes in, aggressively advertising and low-balling on price to try and steal them, they won’t even think of leaving you. Here are 6 tips that will maintain loyalty and repeat business, which is where long-term profits are for most businesses.

#1.  Tell Them About It

Make sure your customers know what you’re doing for them.  Communicate reports, data, and in particular, positive results.  The more complicated your offer (and the more obscure the results) the more important it is you do this.  When you discover a great result, get on the phone right then.  In a way, you have to keep on selling the benefits of your work.  If you don’t, people will forget and begin to wonder what they’re paying you for. Don’t assume people know what you’re doing for them.  Spell it out for them on a consistent basis.

#2.  Happy Special Day!

Use your CRM software to track special dates for your clients, including birthdays, anniversaries, and holidays.  Then make it a Hallmark moment. These little, personal touches can add up.  They’ll make clients think twice about leaving you for a competitor.

#3.  Gifts as Follow Up Tools

Gifts make powerful follow-up tools in sales because people buy from people they like, and we all feel a need to reciprocate when someone gives us something. This isn’t just generalization.  Studies in behavioral psychology demonstrate this through the principles of likability and reciprocity.  Reciprocity is an ingrained behavior in human beings that stems from how early agricultural and hunter/gather communities survived.  If you had a good day hunting, you’d share your food with others who were unlucky that day.  You’d expect them to do the same later when their luck was better than yours. You know the feeling.  When somebody gives you something, you want to return the favor.  We like people who take the time to offer us something special. Just a $5 Starbucks card or an Amazon gift card generates this feeling.  A small price to pay to keep a valuable client.

#4.  Write Handwritten Notes

Need a way to get noticed when the competition is pouring it on?  Try a handwritten note.  It will get noticed, and people will appreciate that you took the time to write them personally.

#5.  Get Personal

When you can, turn your customers into friends. You won’t be able to do this with everyone, but as you learn about customers and realize you have things in common with some of them, act natural and move from just being a service provider to being a friend.  Talk about common interests and, when possible, join people for social events. Your customers – who are also friends – will never leave you.

#6.  Be a Resource

We call this “thinking of you moments.” When you see something that would be of interest or value to a customer, send it to them.  One of the best ways to do this is to share it on social media (so be sure you connect on your business and personal channels with customers).  When you share something, say “I saw this and thought of you!  Hope you like it!”. This provides value and keeps your brand in front of customers.  When you stay top of mind, you’re halfway there. The value you deliver is the key to retaining your customers, but remember that people like to buy from other people.  These 6 tips are all ways to personalize your relationship with customers and show you care about them as people.  Often, these acts are the difference makers that result in lifetime customers.