It can take a lot of time and money to attract new customers to your business. You don’t want that effort and investment to go to waste with a one-time shopping experience. You put all that effort into getting the customer, and now you need to put in a lot of effort to keep that customer. Loyal customers are the backbone of successful businesses. To have a strong backbone, you need to adopt a customer loyalty strategy that provides a service beyond a simple sales transaction.
Effective Customer Loyalty Strategy
The following sales techniques should form the basis of your customer loyalty strategy. These tips get you in the right mindset to build a customer base that will be loyal to your brand, even if the competition is fierce.
1. Relationship vs.Transactional Sales
Relationship selling vs. transaction sellingcan greatly affect the long-term success of your business. Transactional sales have one goal in mind: make the sale, no matter what. With relationship selling, your main goal is to gain customers, not making sales. By focusing on the relationship your brand has with your customers, you can nurture customer loyalty, so every sale doesn’t have to be a fight. Loyal customers will willingly and happily buy from you in the future without having to twist their arm.
2. Consultant vs. Salesman
Relationship selling requires your staff to be trained in consultative selling. As consultants, your staff is trained to focus on value; It’s more about why the customer is shopping, not what they are shopping for. Whereas, if you trained them to be salesmen, their focus is on the product. To make a consultative sale, your staff must gain more insight into a customer and their needs. The more you know and connect with your customer, the better relationship you build, and the more successful your company will be in the long run.
3. Customer Satisfaction vs. Profit Margin
Every company must make a profit to survive. But focusing solely on making a profit can actually hinder your sales. This has never been truer than in today’s review-driven sales atmosphere. Yelp, Google Reviews, and more have made customer satisfaction more critical to attracting new customers than ever before. Dissatisfied customers can do a lot of damage, but, on the other hand, loyal customers can drive sales with their positive reviews. The “I’ve bought from this company before and keep coming back” review is better than paid marketing. If you want to maximize profitability, you need to maximize customer satisfaction.
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How Can You Implement this Customer Loyalty Strategy?
These three tips for customer loyalty come down to one thing: making a connection with your customers. The highest executive to your entry-level sales associate should be trained in making connections with customers. And it doesn’t all come down to a sales pitch or smooth talking. In fact, a lot of it has to do with what isn’t said.
Reading Body Language Improves Sales
The ability to read body language and react accordingly can elevate sales on every level in business. Forbes explains in their article, How The Best Salespeople Read Body Language, how being able to pick up on customers nonverbal cues enables the salesperson to better direct the conversation towards a sale. By training yourself and your staff to identify these nonverbal cues, your company can greatly increase customer satisfaction and thereby increase customer loyalty.
Customer Body Language Signals
Customers say a lot with their bodies, especially their hands and feet. Crossing their arms, crossing one arm, not crossing their arms all signify different emotions. Feet being planted firmly or pointed away or casually crossed can tell you a lot about their feelings as well. Eye, mouth, and hand movement can reveal a client’s inner thoughts more than their words. There are a lot of nonverbal cues that you can use to your advantage.
Reading Customer Body Language
While it may seem difficult to observe body language from head to toe while holding a verbal conversation, it’s actually easier than you think. With the right body language training, you can focus on certain nonverbal cues at key points in a customer interaction to gain a deeper understanding of what the customer wants, and doesn’t want. In the end, you will gain loyal customers who happily spread the word, “they knew exactly what I needed.”
Learn more about How to Influence Others and grow a loyal customer base through our workshops and business coaching.
