The first step when designing your loyalty plan is to analyze the different types of customers you have since not all of them will deserve the same attention.
Once we have made the sale, the work begins to build customer loyalty, strengthen the link with our company, and continue with us. Loyalty is integrated into the process of managing customer relations and, in fact, of all our marketing, from the moment we define our target market, going through how we make sales, and what we do after sales. We need a plan.
There have been a lot of talks lately about the power of emotions in marketing, neuromarketing, storytelling, and other tools. However, those who reflect on and study these issues help us to remove our earmuffs and not obsess over the fashionable concepts of the moment.
Thus, and since emotions are one of the key aspects, we must look for purchase motivations in a holistic way and consider the person in all their dimensions and situations.
In an excellent article entitled “ Hormonal Marketing ”, Antonio León (@antoleonsan) reminds us that purchasing decisions have very different motivations.
With our loyalty plan, we want to strengthen ties with our clients and link them emotionally with our company, so that they do not leave us for another.
This aspect we are going to focus on fundamentally in this article, but we must not forget that we hope to get our clients to continue buying from us, and this depends to a large extent on knowing how to understand their purchase motivations and responding to them with attractive services to the right prices.
Elements Of An Effective Loyalty Plan
Achieving customer loyalty will depend a lot on the perceived value of our service, the level of fulfillment of the expectations created in the sales process, and that we work on emotional aspects to strengthen ties and mitigate possible difficulties; We will thus build a level of customer satisfaction.
I am not going to focus on the aspects that can positively or negatively influence customer satisfaction, but we are going to see specific tools and actions that we can include in our loyalty plan, that is, its elements.
The basic means to work that I propose is communication and its various tools. Logically we will have to previously define what we are going to communicate and how we are going to generate this content.
Feedback
We need to know first-hand what our customers think of us, what aspects they value of our products, and what ideas for improvement they have. At the same time, we need to know what other aspects they perceive as drawbacks or what risks or lost opportunities they think they take on when using our products.
To meet this objective, we have numerous tools, ranging from open or closed surveys, online commenting features, visits, and calls from sales representatives or other employees to regular face-to-face visits by the director to different clients.
Few things are more effective for emotionally linking a client than that he proposes a service and you end up implementing it.
If you think “I won’t call him in case he unsubscribes” you have a serious problem to solve now.
Recommendations
Recommendations are a great sales weapon, but also loyalty. If a client makes you a good recommendation, be it a letter of reference, a short paragraph, or even a video, he establishes his connection with your company, he already “is from the house”.
News
Not only by adapting to the market and searching for new opportunities, we must be permanently generating innovations in our company. Our customers like novelties; not having them implies that we are stagnant and that sooner or later our competition will pass us by lifting the stickers of the motorcycle. In addition to being, you have to appear.
Market Information
Facilitating studies or marketing information to our clients will be positively perceived as a service, but it will also reinforce our image as experts and confirm to our clients that they are one of the best.
Corporate Information
With information about our company, telling about things we do, we will transfer our values to customers, and this will have its weight when making new purchasing decisions.
Product Information
In addition to product news, it is highly recommended to generate information on the use of our products and show their detailed use in different environments and applications. One of the most common causes of customer loss is that they are not using what they have bought properly and are not getting the performance they could.
Special Offers
If we think especially of our customers and make tailor-made offers for them, for example offering improvements in the use of products, adaptations in contracting, and price schemes, that suit their needs, they will thank us with their loyalty. If you can lower the price to a client, for example by introducing a new service modality and you do it on your own initiative, you will earn it for life.
Preferential Treatment
I mean, preferentially treat the customers you already have, not the new ones you want to make. It seems that some telecommunications operators are beginning to realize the error of treating their current customers worse than those who are not yet. Being detailed is essential. And there are details that do not cost money.
Media Impacts
If we get others to talk about us, preferably well, we have excellent material to feed the loyalty of our customers. The impacts in the media can be planned, but also later you have to plan how to get the most out of them
Events
We all love being invited to attend events, presentations, training, etc. Getting in personal contact with our customers is a necessity.
Social Responsability
Your company is part of society, it is recommended that you assume that reality by occupying a role that you design to suit you. The value of these actions will become part of an intangible that is your brand. Your brand must have a specific value in your company and there are numerical ways to calculate it in money.
Some Examples That You Surely Know
It is possible that you tell me, “I already do all that right now.” Can you please show me the document that specifies all the actions you are taking, with dates, the names of the corresponding customers involved, and who in your company is responsible for taking those actions? And does everyone with responsibility have time reserved on their agenda to execute it? Have you analyzed all the costs and the assigned budget? Brilliant! If you have it, you have a loyalty plan. Otherwise, you only have ideas.
The first step when designing your loyalty plan is to analyze the different types of customers you have since not all of them will deserve the same attention.
A good option is to classify them by the income they generate and the growth potential they have, for example with the classic distribution into 3 categories A, B, and C.
But you will need a much finer segmentation, depending on products, sectors, the situation in the company, and even geographic location, etc. appropriate to the actions you want to perform.
Then “only” you have to define what type of actions you are going to carry out with each of your clients, with what frequency, and with what communication tools. And of course, allocate the appropriate resources and communicate them within the company.
Conclusions
The company Getting Contacts! He usually begins his networking sessions with an introduction in which he warns us that if we don’t have at least 7 interactions a year with a contact, we don’t really have a relationship with this person.
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