(Taken from “100+ Ways to Create Customer Loyalty in Business“)
1. Promptly Return Calls
When a customer or potential customer takes the time to contact your business via phone or email, a prompt response (at least within 24 hours if not sooner) immediately creates trust and loyalty. Even if the response is brief and notes that you are unable to respond in full until later, the customer will appreciate knowing that you have received their message and intend to give it attention.
2. Hit a Home Run
Too many people miss opportunities to hit home runs. After doing business with someone, following up every now and then with an actual thank you card and a box of chocolates in the mail is a massive home run. We’re in the game of trust points and emotional impacts. Loyalty is bred from home run human connections. It’s no secret that the humanization of business is happening right now. Anything human wins. Real, solid, meaningful heart to heart stuff will always be king.
3. Relationships Matter
Relationships are important in business and are one of the best forms to create customer loyalty. Non-promotional contact is helpful in remembering/recognizing clients. We send fun mail outs- hand written cards with a coffee card to “take a break on us”, a book they might enjoy, or a hand written note keeping in touch. We offer a complimentary follow up program to help clients maintain success after our training event. Building a relationship is the first step; maintaining it helps create loyalty.
4. There is No YOU in Customer
Understand that what you sell or provide is not what is important to your Prospect or Customer/Client. What IS important to them is what you can do for them. What problem can you solve? What need can you meet? What pain can you alleviate? What cost can you reduce? This is advice I give small business owners in all my workshops and both my books and they thank me later for changing their viewpoint.
5. Speak Their Language
When you dig deeper into who your clients are, you’ll get vital insights into their unique language. This is huge. Certain words make your clients light up and others fall flat. Talk to leaders about order, strategies, and productivity. Teachers speak of training, courses, and methods of study. Most entrepreneurs speak their own language. If this matches their clients’ terminology, everything flows, but if the clients have a different mental framework, then a disconnect will hold you back.
Feeling ambitious? Want more ideas? Go to the BIG list of 100 ways!