In the previous installment, we commented on the rise that subscription services have had in the last decade, among other things, due to the wide range of applications offered by the web market. It seems that many of the activities that used to take a lot of time, such as going to the supermarket or managing public documents, can be simplified with an application that is in the literal sense of the expression, at our fingertips, and the variety of options remains in increase as service companies more carefully detail their operation and ways of making themselves accessible to their customers. However, using technological tools will not guarantee the success of a company in itself. The challenge of getting customers to engage with the service we offer requires more than an application and web presence, it is necessary to achieve customer loyalty.
The verb loyalty is defined as the ability to get customers to be loyal to the brand or service we offer. This phenomenon is achieved when we are not only able to attract and convince clients to hire us, but we can make them feel that they are our reason for being and their well-being, so they will be more willing to stay with us. In other words, the objective of our service should not only be to attract new clients but to retain those who have already been reached. Achieving customer loyalty is not an easy task in a market as competitive as the current one, but it is a challenge that must be taken on as seriously as possible since it is directly related to the profitability of our company.
According to marketing strategy analyst Virginia Garay, acquiring a new client costs between five and ten times more than keeping one you already have, because with the new one you must invest more time and material resources to convince them of the quality of your services. On the other hand, loyal customers know the quality of your services and trust you, therefore, they are willing to invest in your services, whether they are the ones they have already enjoyed or new forays that we are testing. Understanding then that our goal is to achieve loyalty, let’s analyze some suggestions that large service companies have applied successfully.
Keys to Customer Loyalty
- Bonds of Trust
The main key for a customer to maintain a long-term relationship with the service we offer is a solid relationship based on trust, respect, and recognition of their importance to our company. If we manage a corporate culture that understands that each client is significant and that their satisfactory experiences are a joint responsibility, we will create an emotional bond with clients that will make them feel valued and respected, turning them into loyal subscribers and promoters of our brand.
One way to achieve bonds of trust with customers is to promote fluid and personalized communication that avoids pre-established and stiff speeches that people don’t believe in. Use simple and accessible language in your communication, regardless of the medium you use to address them, and regularly address them by name. This will make them feel recognized and cared for in a personal way. Remember that the best way to make your client fall in love is by showing yourself as a warm and close company that knows them personally.
- Reward your loyalists
While it is true that customers subscribe to receive a good or service that is well established in the contracting conditions, they generally fear that their expectations regarding the service will not be met, or at best cases are achieved briefly. Imagine how satisfied they will be if they receive what is agreed in the contract and are also rewarded for their loyalty. The accumulation of points that can be redeemed and the membership in VIP groups are classic examples of loyalty programs applied by large service brands, such as hotels and airlines. These programs remain in place for a reason: They work consistently and customers like them. Can your company apply this strategy creatively and attractively? Do not hesitate to start it!
Another effective way to reward their preference is to give them special gifts on their anniversaries as subscribers or their birthdays. Small details such as giving them special prices in that period, give them discount coupons, or exclusive benefits, will have a positive impact on them. Knowing that they are valued individually will make them want to stay with us for much longer.
- Listen and evolve
As we mentioned at the beginning, the age of the internet has made changes in customer demands constant and therefore the market offers are very diverse. Our goal must be to stay on the train of progress and for this, it is imperative to closely follow the trends on which our service is being sustained.
An effective way to do this is to actively listen to what our customers tell us through their comments, complaints, and suggestions. Consumers are more likely to notice our improvement opportunities when they are using our service than we are working to make it possible. It is important not only to pay attention to their requirements but to return feedback on them as soon as possible. Our suggestion box keeps the map in constant evolution.
- Modernize your Marketing
A few years ago it was common to hear the expression “If it is not on the internet it does not exist” in our time you must not only be present on the web, you must also be present on social networks. However, before taking the big step of joining a social network, we need to be clear about our target market so that we produce content that is directed directly to them.
Creating an archetype of our ideal customer based on the data we have from our subscribers will allow us to effectively approach them through social networks. In this way we will know which are the social networks in which we must enter, with what type of content we will approach them, and at what times they consume it, thus achieving an effective marketing strategy. Once the profiles of the networks where we will be effective have been created, we will interact with our followers constantly to generate solid social relationships.
Management Indicators
A vitally important element when entering social networks is the analysis of the impact that our publications have on our followers. This analysis is usually known as a metric because it presents us with indicators of the growth of our brand in social networks, and establishes a path to follow to achieve market positioning. But being in the networks and the metrics are not all to reach customers effectively.
While it is true that the metric resulting from analyzing the behavior of our customers on social networks offers us a set of important indicators, it should not be the only one by which we measure our advertising impact. Metric programs, in general, tend to suffer from certain segmentation values necessary to understand the behavior of our customers, such as the ability to tell us how many customers ended up making an effective purchase from an Instagram post. Furthermore, the social media metric leaves out customers who consume our services and who do not follow us on social media for various reasons. In other words, there is a gap between what our presence on social networks indicates and the real impact of our products, which we must do everything possible to close.
The challenge is to combine the information behind the interaction in the networks, the suggestion boxes, and the lists of our clients and their preferences. This crossing will give us a complex data set that, combined appropriately, will allow us to define the consumption patterns of our clients in a more precise way, and as a consequence, we can segment them into well-defined groups that we can reach with advertising. specific.
We can conclude then that customer loyalty implies connecting with them beyond the obvious commercial relationship. We need to create bonds of emotional connection that make them feel part of a community that values them individually. Reaching customer loyalty requires investing in time and resources that make us know them in a close and real way, to offer them our services in a more precise way. We obtain such information from our ability to obtain data from the communication we establish with them, analyze them and convert them into the necessary knowledge for the development of our company, and apply marketing more precisely. We have yet to discover if it is possible to combine our clients’ metadata with the metrics of social networks, to offer us precise indicators about the current impact of our company in the market and its possible growth.
