Customer retention is an important part of business growth. Keeping customers returning to your business for products and services ensures that you will have a stable client base while you work towards adding new customers.
Maintaining relationships with both your existing clients and new ones can be a challenge. Each has different needs and require a different type of attention from your company’s customer service representatives. Often, sales, customer service, and marketing professionals work together to develop relationships and maintain contact with your prospective and current customer base.
It can make your head spin to think about all the work that goes into not only strengthening your customer base but gaining their loyalty and retaining their business at the same time. It is for that reason several companies have opted to develop Customer Loyalty Programs.
One of the most effective ways to keep customers engaged in your company’s products and services is to offer them rewards and incentives for their loyalty. Implementing a customer loyalty program can help each department of your company acquire, engage, and retain customers.
Generate Brand Interest
Your marketing department works tirelessly to stay in front of trends and get your company’s message to the correct audience. They also work to cultivate and nurture relationships with customers. You may be thinking that a customer loyalty program is only suitable for those who have already purchased from your company, but a rewards program can do so much more than that!
Your marketing department can use your customer loyalty program as a selling point to attract new customers. Offering discounts for signing up and encouraging people to become part of your mailing list is a great way to draw attention to your products and services. Rewarding prospective customers with an incentive to start can help your marketing department to create nurturing campaigns that retain their interest and turn them into life-long customers.
Create Brand Advocates
A customer loyalty program has the power to turn prospective customers into returning customers and current customers into life-long brand advocates.
Customer loyalty programs use to mean a small punch card that customers kept in their wallet (or left at home). Program members use to be incentivized to continue their patronage to a company in pursuit of as many punches as it took to receive a reward for their loyalty. More often than not, the card would get forgotten at home or lost, and customers would give up every seeing that final punch to earn a reward.
Now, with the sophistication of modern loyalty programs, customers can engage with your brand from their mobile devices (something that never gets left at home). Current rewards programs inspire real-time action for your customers to explore your brand, earn rewards, and share their experience through social media.
Not only is your company benefiting from their continued use of the loyalty program and their patronage to your products and services, but you are also benefiting from the word-of-mouth advertising and brand recommendation they are sharing with their social media followers. Happy and loyal customers want to help their friends and family make informed purchasing decisions, and today’s customer loyalty programs incentivize customers to share your brand.
Increase in Revenue
The primary reason for creating a customer loyalty program is to boost customer retention. The more customers that keep coming back to your products and services, the more revenue you can expect to gain. According to Forbes Magazine, businesses who increase customer retention by just 5 percent see a revenue increase of at least 25 percent. Your customer loyalty program incentivizes customers to stay engaged with your brand and continue to use products and services offered. This brings them back and ultimately increases their spend.
Loyal customers can receive various incentives including discounts, cash rewards, free samples, gifts, and other merchandise. Programs can be set up to accommodate the needs of your company while also appealing to customer interests.
A customer loyalty program makes your customers feel appreciated. They value your brand when they feel valued by you in return. Newer programs make it simple for your customers to buy products, stay engaged with your brand, share their experiences, and recommend your products to family and friends. They are encouraged to be an active part of your loyalty program when they receive incentives and rewards for participating. This gives your program the power to retain and increase a customer’s lifetime value while also drawing the attention of new customers and improve relationships with the people who support your brand.