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Customer Loyalty in a Disruptive World

Posted on Monday, April 19th, 2021 • Blog

The past year has been highly disruptive for all businesses across many industries. A lot of shoppers moved online faster than ever predicted before. This changed the way customers think and shop, forever.

Companies reacted in many ways. Some went remote, others restructured, a few took the opportunity to shine with CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) activities in aid of front-liners a.k.a health workers. Some showed their true colours, others took care of their staff and their families. It all put a big spotlight on businesses to show their true nature.

Shoppers had more time to talk, ask, research and think. Impulsive buys became a thing of the past. The online shopper has come of age and is now more savvy and exigent. Acquiring new customers, retaining old ones and maintaining customer loyalty are now more challenging than ever. What’s sure is that all businesses need a smart online experience in 2021.

Here are 4 tips to help you succeed as a company in the ‘new normal’:

1. Drive 360-degree customer loyalty

The longer a customer stays with your company the higher their customer lifetime value and their overall spend. Loyalty is therefore a very important factor. What’s more a happy client is 70% more likely to make a second purchase than a newly acquired contact.

Customer retention is way cheaper than new customer acquisition, and has a much higher Return on Investment. Research shows that you can increase your profits between 25 and 95% just by increasing your retention rate by 5%.

Improving customer loyalty is therefore key to the success and growth of any company. Where can you start? The first step is to create a plan to engage customers using a 360-degree approach.

This means working with data from across all your customer touch points to find out what’s important to your customers and create processes that feed that information into your company to make sure it is immediately actioned.

A 360-degree approach usually involves a minimum of 5 data points that are used as a measure for loyalty, such as:

  • Transactional loyalty: A classic measure of customer loyalty. Do customers come back to repurchase your product?
  • Social loyalty: Do customers follow your company on social media and share your company’s updates, products, info and content?
  • Advocacy loyalty: Do customers promote your brand by spreading information through word of mouth?
  • Engagement loyalty: Do customers engage with your content?
  • Behavioural loyalty: Is your company part of the customers’ buying habits? Do customers buy from the company consistently in their daily lives?
  • Emotional loyalty: How do customers feel about the company? Do they have a heartfelt connection to the brand?

2. Understand the 5 customer desires

The current situation has shown that traditional reward programs aren’t enough anymore to keep customers coming back. Brand loyalty begins with the brand, not the customer. If a company does more for their customers, the customer will do more for you.  We’re ultimately dealing with human-to-human relationships, so it’s no different to any other relationships.

Customers want to be acknowledged on a human level, they want to be seen and heard as individuals not numbers, so it is crucial to personalise your approach. If you’re hoping to win loyal customers, you must consider five customer desires:

  • Information: Offer customers relevant information about your brand and the products they buy from you.
  • Rewards: Customers want to save money, receive discounts and get VIP benefits like being the first to be informed about special offers.
  • Recognition: Show that you know and remember your customers. Anticipate their needs and acknowledge them as individuals.
  • Connect: Customers want to feel like they’re “in the know,” with exclusive access to products and features that help them stand out from the crowd.
  • Value their time: Provide a consistent, convenient buying experience. Make every interaction count.

3. Invest in loyalty currency: safety and trust

Customers always wanted to do business with companies that offer:

  • quality products,
  • fair pricing,
  • convenience,
  • consistency
  • a positive buying experience

But in 2021, customers now also prioritise safety and therefore trust has become a big factor for loyalty. No one wants to take on needless risk. People want to stay safely at home if they can.

This is why having a delivery partner who can offer a trustworthy service must be your priority. Miles Express helps your business build customer trust by ensuring a timely delivery every time and giving an all-round positive experience.

Companies that succeed today will keep customer safety at the forefront. They need to offer an online shopping alternative and provide delivery in a timely manner.

Those who provide a high-quality online or omnichannel retail experience will have an edge over those who can’t. This will be worthwhile.

This is why we’re seeing E-commerce growing at an unprecedented rate. Companies that are left behind may never recover and possibly even disappear. It’s important for retailer to create seamless integration of their offline business with their online operations in order to drive success. (If your business is not yet online, take a look at our blog on what you need to do to set up an eCommerce site)

Customers will return to purchase from businesses that provide a streamlined delivery experience. When you make your customers’ lives easier, you show you respect their time and value their comfort. By going online you’re giving them the opportunity to stay loyal to you. But only if you retain your levels of service. Customers remember quality treatment both online and offline.

4. Old school tactics in the new normal

Old school loyalty marketing tactics such as giving customers a discount to keep them shopping work, but it’s much smarter to keep customers happy without eating into your margins.

Great companies get their best customers to pay more, not less. This is done by nurturing relationships with those customers who keep your business thriving so they come back to do business with you again.

Loyalty marketing is more than offering customers a financial reward. It’s about showing that you are also loyal to them. So pay attention to your customers. Understand their needs and desires. Keep them informed about how your products can help them. Give them exclusive offers.

Loyal customers are the foundation of a strong business. To keep them loyal, treat them like you treat important people in your life and they will return that in kind.

Even in the mayhem of this situation, the Golden Rule never goes out of style.

Following the 4 tips above will help any company offer a better product or service. At Miles Express, we ensure that we are true to your brand promise.

We maintain open lines of personal communication and strive to strengthen relationships with all our customers. We focus on using innovative technology to offer our clients solutions to efficiently and effectively do business.

We provide easy to use technology and tracking systems that integrate with your online SOP (Standard Operating Procedure) and help you provide data to track and improve customer loyalty.

We also value customer loyalty this is why we constantly review and assess. We evaluate our delivery process and digital systems to streamline and improve the operations of our clients and their customer touch points so as to provide a better service.

We understand that gaining loyal customers can be challenging, this is why we are here to help as your reliable delivery partner. If you would like to learn more about how we can help you, book a call-back here or call us on (+356) 2124 0877.

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