Gaining Life Time Customers
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Let me tell you how the oldest motel in Texas grab me as a customer for life. My wife was looking at motels through tripadvisor.com. She came across a super amazing motel Rainbow Courts Motel. They have 470 reviews and 5/5 star ratings. Once we got to the motel, we were completely blown away.
The presentation was like taking a step back in time. They were 100% authentic starting with oak trees and garden chairs for their guests to lounge in, white benches, and pictures from various times spanning 130 years (this makes sense since it has been family owned from the beginning). It was a great retreat from the cookie cutter hotels. They were 100% all about customers care and happiness.
I was chit chatting with the owner. He was telling me that his wife was a super stickler for the finer details. O boy he was correct.. Everything about the motel was amazing for the price. The covers of the bed to the comfy pillows, artwork, and fluffy towels down to the perfect toiletries made this place a gem. Its the finer details that made this place stand out from all others. The whole room was completely spotless. Under the bed, you’ll normally find tons of dust, crumbs, dirt and so many other nasty things at most, if not all hotels, but not here. Our baby dropped her pacifier and it landed under the bed. My wife was dreading what she might find under there. To her surprise, the floor under the bed was immaculate and 100% spotless. This one fine detail made my wife and i lifetime customers for this motel.
I told the owner how my wife and i were so damn impressed with it and he said him and his wife inspect every room after the cleaning lady’s have cleaned the room; just to make sure it’s 100% perfect for the customers. These owners know how to treat their customers right. They understand what their customers needs and wants are. It’s all about the customers.
So the point of my story is. Be like this motel. Completely know your customers, treat your customers like kings, don’t skimp out on the finer items that’ll increase your customers pleasure, and be their for them when your customer needs something from you.
The Problem
Don’t know how to turn a one time buyer into a life time customer.
Solving The Problem
Customers should always be prioritized by any business establishment. Customer service is an essential component in the entire process of a business’ quality management, and everyone in the company should be aware of that. To give the customers the quality of what they are paying for is the best way to let them know how much you value them. When you make them feel important, they will naturally be loyal to your products and services, exactly what you want.
Benefits Of Solving The Problem
They are more likely to shop with you repeatedly.
It is easier to sell to a return buyer.
They spend more during the busy season.
Repeat shoppers market your business to a broader demographic.
They spend more each time they purchase from you.
Strategies To Boost Customer Retention
On boarding Customer Program - Customer Onboarding' is an umbrella term that's often used to describe the entire process that users go through when they start their journey as a customer of your product or service. The onboarding experience can define the ongoing relationship your customer has with the product. In other words: It's critical.
Customer Feedback Loop - Customer Feedback Loop In other words, the product feedback loop is the process of collecting customer feedback continuously and improving your product based on their opinions. The product feedback loop is a process of collecting customer feedback continuously and improving your product based on their opinions.
Communication Calendar - The core concept of a communication calendar is pretty simple: it lays out what your public-facing messages will be, and when and where you'll be delivering them. Think of it as a cheat sheet for you and your team that outlines what you should be talking about at any given moment in your marketing campaign.
Customer Loyalty Program - By definition, a customer loyalty program is a marketing approach that recognizes and rewards customers who purchase or engage with a brand on a recurring basis. A company may dole out points or perks, and graduate customers to higher levels of loyalty the more they buy.
Customer Advisory Board - A customer advisory board is a group of customers who come together on a regular basis to share insights and advice with an organization. Usually, the members of a customer advisory board are high-level executives at their organizations and therefore can provide in-depth market insight.
Corporate Social Responsibility Program - Corporate social responsibility is a broad concept that can take many forms depending on the company and industry. Through CSR programs, philanthropy, and volunteer efforts, businesses can benefit society while boosting their brands. As important as CSR is for the community, it is equally valuable for a company
Company Newsletter - Company newsletters include periodic updates, news, promotions and events communicated in print or electronic form. ... Companies send newsletters weekly, monthly or quarterly, depending on their goals and business activities.
Adopt customer service tools - To make your customer experience as positive as possible, you need to take advantage of the tools available to you. From Facebook Messenger to CRM tracking, software can easily increase your effectiveness in dealings with clients and ensure they become loyal shoppers with you.
Inspire with a mission- Sometimes a brand inspires loyalty not through tactics and systems, but through what they stand for. As consumers, we're focused on the altruistic and environmental effects that our buying habits have beyond consumption. Doing good is becoming more and more important to us. This doesn't mean you should build your marketing around an altruistic message just to do it. The lesson is in finding something that people care about and positioning your brand around it.
Empower customers with conveniencen- The simplest takeaway here is this: make your products and services as accessible as possible. Identify the desires and behaviors of your customers and create tools and systems that empower them. Whether that be an app or other traditional methods, it's up to you.
Leverage personalization - To get started with an approach like this, identify your audience personas and communicate with them on their preferred channels. It doesn't matter if it's email or Snapchat, as long as it's where their attention is.From here you should encourage your customers to speak directly with you through that channel. Make it part of your messaging and remind them during and after the buying experience. And always add personality to every message. Nobody likes a canned response, so make sure whatever you're communicating sounds like it's coming from a human.
Speak to your customers.The biggest lesson here is customer satisfaction surveys. Give your clients an opportunity to express what they're doing right and, more importantly, what they're getting wrong. This allows them to identify unhappy customers before they bounce.
Use gamification and referral programs. This clever referral program. Customers are encouraged from the moment they purchase to refer a friend, and the rewards are worth it: For every friend you refer, you get $20 ( x) and they get 20% (x%) off their first purchase. There's a gamification element that shows how far through the buying experience your friend is, too, including a "nudge" button. If a friend adds a product to the cart but hasn't completed checkout, you can use this to send an email reminder about it. In other words, MeUndies has found a way to use their current customers to reduce cart abandonment, while providing social proof in the process.When done well, referral systems can be really effective for retention. The key is to focus on strong incentives and gamification to get people invested. Most importantly, don't forget to empower and encoura
Create a divide between you and your competitors. Want your customers to see you as the obvious choice over your competitors? Make note of Apple's strategy, demonstrated by their "Mac vs. PC" ad campaign. Sticking true to who you are as a brand shows integrity and makes it easier to attract customers that just might become your strongest brand advocates.
Use experiences to elicit positive feelings. Look for ways to create positive feelings in the form of new experiences outside of your main products, services, and value propositions.
Capitalize on social proof. Use customer testimonials and information to attract new customers, and to convince existing customers to stick around or upgrade their products. Highlight loyal customers -- and their stories -- on your website or your social media networks to share their successes to help you grow your own.
Educate your customers. Just because your customer has made a purchase from you doesn't mean you should stop trying to close the deal. Your customers have more options available to them than ever before, and if they find a competitor of yours with a similar offering and price that seems more exciting, you could lose them. Education is one of the most valuable things you can offer your customers.
Surprise and delight. Uses the principle of surprise reciprocity to delight your customers with spur-of-the-moment gifts and cards for your customers. These surprises don't need to be big or expensive, but they're memorable to your customers by demonstrating care for them.
Offer support on the right platforms. Part of knowing and understanding your customers is knowing where they spend their days using your product, and how they most want to get customer support when needed.
Thank your customers. To the point above, taking the time to say thank you to your customers -- outside of an email campaign or a customer purchase -- goes a long way toward building a brand that's lovable and memorable.
Apologize when you make mistakes. Try as you might to avoid them, mistakes happen in business. Whether that mistake is a data breach, an outage, a billing error, or something else, a mistake can put you at risk of losing your valued customers -- depending on how you handle it.
Feature Your Fans in Your Content. Embed social media posts from fans who have shared your content or said something great about your brand to their followers. Put them in the spotlight and let them know how much you appreciate them. Once they see the reciprocity, they’ll make your brand a priority and become one of your most valuable marketing assets
Make Quality a Priority. If you have the best product, and you keep making it better, you’re going to have loyal customers. If you pair that with any of the above strategies, you’ll be close to unstoppable. People love to feel like they have the best thing, no matter what that thing is, and they’ll do way more than talk about it if they really feel like it’s the best.
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