When you run a business, you have to focus on all sorts of areas to experience success. But one of the main things that should always feature highly on your list of priorities is making sure that customers love your brand. Building brand loyalty is what can maximize your sales and keep them going in the long term and that can result in positive reviews and recommendations that will bring in new customers too. But what can you do to achieve this? In an ever-increasingly saturated market, sometimes it can feel difficult to stand out from the crowd and to build positive associations between your brand and your customers. Here are a few suggestions to get the ball rolling!
Conduct Market Research
Market research is pretty much any research conducted into consumers and their behavior. You can learn a whole lot about what people want and what they are willing to pay for when it comes to your products. This can help you to make significant business decisions that will encourage customers to like your brand and ensure that you’re doing all the things that they want. Generally, market research is carried out by conducting surveys, getting people to complete questionnaires, holding focus groups and seminars, and conducting a whole host of other market research tasks. You can then use this information to better understand your customers and better cater to their wants, needs, and preferences. Some companies do conduct market research in-house, but the vast majority will outsource their market research tasks for an unbiased and easier process.
Go Above and Beyond
Of course, you should go above and beyond for your customers at all times. Wherever you have a chance to surprise them with the brilliance of your brand, you should take the opportunity to do so. This means doing things for your customers that you might not necessarily have to, do but that will leave a positive lasting impression on them. If you can, invest in branded promotional materials, such as backpack covers branded, branded pins, branded pens or pencils, or other branded products. Include them as a free gift with each order. Consider giving discounts to people who have purchased from you for them to use on their next order. Make sure that you leave a thank you note in each order. These are just a few examples, but small and relatively cheap gestures can really help to build brand loyalty.
Provide Great Customer Service
Providing great customer service can, again, really help when it comes to building great associations between your brand and positive feelings. Nowadays, customer service can feel like something that is difficult to provide, as many businesses are currently operating online and you can’t see your customers face-to-face. But providing brilliant customer service is still possible. Here are some suggestions that could help you do this!
Open-Up Means of Communication
The first thing you need to do to provide great customer service online is to make sure that customers can actually get in touch with you and your team. This means opening up multiple means of communication with them. By making sure that your customers have multiple means of getting in touch, you can ensure that everyone feels comfortable reaching out with any questions or queries that they may have. You can then resolve their problems, provide great advice, and, hopefully, encourage a sale or positive feedback. Remember that people have different preferences. Not everyone will want to get in touch in the same way. Some will want to call. Some will feel uncomfortable speaking over the phone and would prefer to type queries out through a chatbox or email. Some will prefer other methods. So, make sure that you have a business phone number. Make sure that you provide customers with your business email address. Finally, make sure that you have social media pages with contact buttons and that people regularly check your social media DMs and inboxes. This is a means of contact that customers are using increasingly frequently.
Train Your Staff
If you have employees that you are using as customer service assistants, you need to make sure that every single member is fully trained in the customer service you expect them to provide. As well as ensuring they know your brand inside out, so they can answer questions on every subject, you also need to make sure that they know:
- How to greet customers
- How to answer queries
- How to subtly encourage sales
- How to deal with complaints or incidents
These are just a few starting points for you. But each will significantly help customers to fall in love with your brand!
Create Merchandise And Other Extras
You have to make sure that you’re there to be seen when it comes to getting people’s attention. Whether people have been buying from you for a while or they’ve only just heard of you, there needs to be an element of visibility on your part. Creating merchandise allows a relationship to be built even stronger as they’ll be investing in more than just the products you create – they’ll actually want to support you as a whole. So, creating custom stickers, bags, clothes, and all kinds of other merchandise can go a long way in tightening a bond.
