We all talk about brand loyalty and why it’s important for business growth. But how big a part does the customer experience play in generating brand loyalty among existing or potential new customers?
In this article Face For Business discusses the importance of brand loyalty and how you can generate it by providing a great customer experience.
If you’re wondering why a great customer experience is so important when it comes to brand loyalty and growth, think back to the last time you bought something or contacted a business.
If it was a good experience, it probably left you happy, feeling glad you’d dealt with that business and chose them over the other options.
And it probably left you more likely to recommend them to friends and family, and made it more likely you’d use them again the next time you needed a similar product or service.
This is what customers are saying anyway.
Research by Temkin Group found that 77% of customers would recommend a brand to a friend after having a positive experience
If it was a bad experience, the opposite applies.
You’d feel angry, or at least disappointed.
You wouldn’t recommend them to family or friends, you’d be much more likely to warn them off using the company.
And you’d be highly unlikely to use them in future.
Again, this is what customers are claiming. In one study by Zendesk, more than half (52%) of customers said they’d never buy from a business again if they had a bad experience.
The customer experience plays a huge part in brand loyalty and growth today.
With so many options when it comes to products and services (and most products and services offering roughly the same things) customer experience has become one of the last surviving differentiators.
Customer experience can seem like a complicated thing, but really it’s just about delivering on your promises and being there when a customer needs something.
Here’s a couple of quick things you can instantly start to do to increase brand loyalty:
Be available
Sounds simple, and it is.
Customer service begins at any point a customer tries to contact you or buy your product.
Whether they come to a physical store, buy online, or even pick up the phone and call you.
The key to this is making it possible for customers to get in touch with you however they want to.
Too many companies today are tunnel visioned on the ‘digital experience’ and the performance of their website, but the reality is when a customer has a more complex or personal question – or wants a quick answer – they’re actually more likely to pick up the phone.
And if they’re met with an automated message or a voice asking them to press a series of numbers before they can talk to someone, or they talk to someone and are passed on and have to start again, that’s a negative experience and will likely lead to them going elsewhere.
Be personal
Personalisation has become a bit of a buzzword in business and especially in marketing but the reality is it plays a huge part in the customer experience.
In one study 80% of customers said they’re more likely to purchase from a business which provides personalised customer experiences.
This could be personalised offers or discounts offered online or through emails, or it could be as simple as having a human voice on the other end of the phone when a customer contacts you.
Be responsive
A key part of customer service is responding quickly when a customer has a query.
Whether they send a message through your website via a chatbot, send you an email, message on social media or call.
Having a reputation for responding quickly and resolving customer issues is one of the best ways to improve the customer experience and build brand loyalty at the same time.
Knock on effects of customer experience and brand loyalty
While improving the customer experience is obviously important when it comes to the individual employee, it can also have a knock on effect that will improve your brand loyalty beyond individual transactions.
And this is when it comes to turning individual customers into brand advocates.
One element of this is generating positive reviews from customers based on positive experiences.
It’s often thought that customers are more likely to leave reviews that are negative and that providing a positive experience simply reduces the chances of getting negative reviews.
But that’s not actually the case.
According to research 67% of customers will consider leaving a review after a positive experience while only 40% will consider it after a negative experience.
So great customer service has a greater chance of generating reviews for your brand.
And this is important because of the weight new customers put on social proof and basing their own purchasing decisions on the experiences of others.
More than a third of customers (34%) say they always read reviews of local businesses before making a buying decision, and 43% say they do so regularly.
So with more than three quarters of customers relying on reviews before making a decision, customer experience really is essential for that brand loyalty.