You spend time and money attracting new customers. And you're right to want to retain them too! How do you go about it, and where do you start? What are the more or less well-known mechanisms for generating long-term customer loyalty? We tell you everything!
On customer support, communication, transactions... To build customer loyalty, don't settle for just one point of contact! If you have a physical point of sale, organize your online presence in a dematerialized way, with as much automation as possible (social networks, website, click & collect, SMS marketing, etc.).
In the opposite direction, all the major e-commerce players ended up opening physical stores as soon as they reached a critical size. In France alone, this is the case for Plantes pour Tous, Bobbies, le Slip Français, Balibaris, Merci Handy... Omnichannel brands have a far greater power of reassurance than DNVBs (digital native vertical brands), which remain 100% online.
The same applies to small shops: for 26% of customers, a positive local experience makes them want to visit the store's website*. Even with a simple online presence, omnichannel allows you to reach out to your customers in-between visits, to build much greater loyalty.
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It's the basics: customer experience is the key to customer loyalty. Don't worry, there's no need to reinvent the wheel: if you're already very clear about what your customers can expect from you, and if you consistently deliver it with impeccable results, that's already a huge step towards building loyalty.
For top service (restaurants, beauty, support, etc.), the key is happy, motivated teams. By putting people in the best possible working conditions, the customer experience should be enough to make people want to come back.
This is the first step towards active loyalty. To encourage revisits, you need to set up a loyalty program. This not only rewards your customers, but also enables you to interact with them using customer data.
Whether it's a points system, discount coupons, gifts, exclusive offers for the next visit... Give your customers even more reasons to come back.
The best thing is a points-based loyalty system, with progressive rewards for loyal customers. It's a great way to encourage a2nd visit as well as a 10th. As a corollary, a dematerialized loyalty program enables us to capture customer data, which in turn enables us to launch highly effective loyalty campaigns.
Offer more value and confidence to your customers, including through after-sales service or customer support. Over and above your added value, it's this climate of trust that makes people want to become loyal to one company rather than another. This is particularly true in e-commerce, which by default has a virtual customer relationship. To bridge the distance, Amazon has become a benchmark in customer service, with a policy that is exaggeratedly in favor of end customers.
It's important to create this relationship of trust, by responding quickly to their requests and doing everything possible to achieve customer satisfaction. Repairs, replacements, upgrades, etc... Everything is done to generate trust and loyalty.
Create a special relationship through relationship marketing. You can personalize your customer relations with customer data and a good CRM (like the Hey Pongo dashboard). You can also encourage your customers to get involved with you, through a sponsorship program and exclusive events.
Fundamental, it's probably the best tip on the list. SMS keeps your customers coming back - our campaign statistics say so!
Stop waiting for your customers to come back (spoiler: many won't). Re-engage them with SMS campaigns! Welcome messages, anniversaries, loyalty rewards, promotions, events, new products... You can activate a whole host of automated messages that will keep your customers coming back for more. SMS marketing is a great loyalty builder, with up to 85% repeat business in some of our customer cases.
Read the article: Customer loyalty, 12 successful SMS campaigns
One of the main difficulties in building loyalty is that competitors innovate and customers are volatile... The best response is to constantly improve your products or services. If your products are impossible to improve, you can enhance the customer experience by adding a loyalty program, customer base animations, marketing games, etc... By seeking to offer more added value, you'll retain many more customers.
Being visible on the Internet plays a major role in building customer loyalty. A recent customer who sees you on the Internet is much more likely to buy from you again. Consolidate your image by being well positioned on Google, thanks to customer reviews. Google reviews are also an invaluable feedback channel, enabling you to improve based on what your customers think.
Collecting customer data is fundamental to building loyalty. On the one hand, it provides visibility on performance indicators (loyalty rate, frequency of visits, average basket, etc.).
On the other hand, you have precise customer knowledge that enables you to personalize your interactions with them, whether via a CRM or directly.
Finally, it gives you a way of recontacting your customers by email, SMS, social networks... All of which means you can launch targeted, highly effective marketing campaigns.
Opt for unexpected loyalty actions to surprise your customers. Celebrate birthdays and anniversaries with SMS marketing, propose special personalized offers... This type of initiative humanizes your messages and customer relations.
For a surprise effect, you can animate your customer base. With tools like Hey Pongo, it's easy, automated and highly effective. You can propose marketing games, gift wheels, promotions on key dates of the year, etc. With an enriched customer file, you can segment your clientele to propose the right message to the right customer, in automated mode.
Building loyalty can be a huge source of revenue. Don't have the time to put it all together? We're Hey Pongo, the expert marketing platform for customer loyalty! Dematerialized loyalty programs, SMS campaigns, marketing games, all at the same time and tailored to your business.
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Is customer loyalty always worth the cost? Instinctively, we want to say yes... But if not? Discover all the benefits of customer loyalty.
If you're interested in loyalty, you may have heard this phrase before:
"It costs 5 to 7 times more to attract a new customer than to retain an existing one".
It's everywhere: in business and marketing blogs, at conferences... Even in our company, we may have used it (if you find out which page, we'll give you a free SMS campaign ;) ).
It's become a commonplace that we repeat without knowing if it's true. So, is it real? We'd like to say, it doesn't matter! The cost of a customer has to be considered in relation to what he or she will bring in. And [.is--yellow-highlight]a loyal customer not only costs less to keep coming back, but is also much more profitable.[.is--yellow-highlight]
A customer who comes back 3 times means as many transactions as 3 customers who only come once (no shit Sherlock). But above all, to build loyalty, you CAN address the customer who has already come once to get him to come back - because you've made contact with him (an e-mail, an 06, an @). What's more, you'll have a better chance of success than with an acquisition strategy: this customer has already been with you, and you know he's ready to buy your products or services. This is in contrast to customer acquisition, where you address people who potentially have no interest in your products.
What's more, if you choose them well, your loyalty tools apply to all your customers at the same time. And it costs next to nothing, compared to the enormous sales it can generate. In short, the phrase has gone out of fashion: today, loyalty isn't 5 times cheaper than acquisition. It's more like 50 times cheaper!
By building loyalty among your customers, here are all the benefits you'll enjoy:
[.is--yellow-highlight]1 - Increase Lifetime Value[.is--yellow-highlight] (or customer lifetime value): This is what each customer brings in over the course of their relationship with your company. Each customer will, in fact, generate much more sales.
[.is--yellow-highlight]2 - Reduce marketing costs[.is--yellow-highlight]: acquisition costs you less as a proportion of sales generated. You reduce your dependence on paid acquisition by increasing the share of loyalty in your sales.
[.is--yellow-highlight]3 - Sustainable sales[.is--yellow-highlight]: by building customer loyalty, customers become less volatile, more predictable from one year to the next. The culmination of all this is the monthly recurring revenue (MRR ) subscription, the grail for any business in need of reassurance.
[.is--yellow-highlight]4 - Improve your company's image[.is--yellow-highlight]: your loyal customers are your company's best ambassadors. They are essential to your online and offline reputation.
[.is--yellow-highlight]5 - Create a bond of trust[.is--yellow-highlight]: your loyal customers are more likely to follow you when you take risks, launch new products/services or change your prices.
[.is--yellow-highlight]6 - Improve products and services[.is--yellow-highlight]: your loyal customers give you more feedback. They leave reviews, they engage in conversation with you. This feedback enables you to adjust your offer to generate more sales.
[.is--yellow-highlight]7 - Ensuring the company's longevity[.is--yellow-highlight]: your loyal customers stabilize your sales, reassure investors and confirm that you're doing things right!
Here are the 5 best indicators (or KPIs, for Key Performance Indicator) to assess the quality of your customer retention. If we don't give reference values, it's because they only make sense in relation to a given sector of activity: you don't aim for the same customer retention rate for an ISP, a bank or an e-commerce site... Calculate them to see how they evolve over time, and how they place you in relation to your competitors.
It corresponds to the percentage of customers who have remained loyal to you over a given period, depending on what you want to analyze (1 month, 1 quarter, one year...).
It is calculated as follows
Customer retention rate = (Customers at end of period - customers acquired during the period) / customers at beginning of period x 100
This is the negative of the previous KPI. It's the percentage of customers who have abandoned you during a given period.
It is calculated as follows
Attrition rate = Customers lost during a period / Customers at start of period x 100
It tells you how much each customer should earn you over the course of their relationship with your company (on average). It's an indicator that shows the leverage that loyalty can have on your sales.
Lifetime Value = Average basket x number of transactions per year x Retention rate
This is the percentage of customers who have made a second purchase during a given period (e.g. a year). It is of particular interest in e-commerce, retail and the beauty sector.
Repeat purchase rate = Customers repeating a purchase / total number of customers x 100
This is the average number of transactions per unique customer. If it's close to 1, it's time to implement some of the loyalty-building measures below!
Average purchase frequency = Number of transactions / Number of customers
Are you short of customer data to calculate these performance indicators?
Hey Pongo is THE solution for collecting customer data and gaining visibility over your loyalty strategy (in addition to delivering the most effective dematerialized loyalty program).
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*Futurum / SAS study " Experience 2030 - The future of customer experience " (2019)
