One of the most important tasks in your customer sales process is encouraging them to be more than an a one-time buyer.
By turning a customer who buys just once, to more than twice means that you drive down your acquisition cost – so what it costs for you to ‘buy’ that customer.

So why should you focus on customer loyalty in business?

It is much easier to keep a customer than to find a new one.  What you must focus on is how to keep them buying from you – building their loyalty so they don’t stray to a competitor.
What makes a a strong customer loyalty strategy?
Begin with looking at how strong your offer is to keep customers coming back to you.  Customers also need to be satisfied and happy with what they are buying – if they aren’t, not only are they unlikely to purchase again, but they will also tell others why not to buy from you. The opportunity to track their loyalty needs to be convenient and not cause additional stages in the sales process. For example, if using loyalty cards or apps – make them easy to use.
You also need to ensure your marketing communications promote the loyalty schemes and that your team is promoting the loyalty scheme.
Five steps to creating a customer loyalty scheme
  1. Decide on what can you offer your customers in return for their loyalty – is it a free product or service for purchasing a set number, or a discount on a service. Ensure that you have margins to play with so that the offer is attractive enough.
  2.  Be clear who your target audience is – be as specific as you can so that your marketing speaks to your target audience and where your target audience is.
  3. Create a system that works – Not only is this for your loyal customers, but if you have a strong loyalty scheme which is easy to understand and redeem. you will have strong number of referrals also. The system needs to include how, and where you promote the scheme in the customer’s purchasing journey.
  4. Clearly define when to introduce your customers to your scheme – this isn’t necessarily on their first purchase.
  5. Ensure that you are ready – this includes training your team, ensuring that you have stock if you are giving free products away.
Remember – the idea is to get your customers travelling up the ladder of loyalty until they are raving fans and doing your marketing for you!
As part of our coaching programme we have a number of tried and tested loyalty schemes – get in touch to find out more.