Importance of Acquiring and Maintaining Customer Loyalty
What does customer loyalty actually mean? In simple words, customer loyalty refers to repeat customers who go back to the same particular company or buy certain products or services out of loyalty.
It does not matter whether you want to call it customer satisfaction, trust or whatever. It all boils down to loyalty. If a certain customer is satisfied or trusts your service or product, he or she is loyal and purchases the service or product from you. In other words, loyalty of customers is very critical to all businesses, big or small. For those of you who are aware of the ISO9001 Standard, you would most probably know that customer satisfaction is one of the major elements in the standard.
ISO9001 Standard is used as a benchmark among all business organizations worldwide. ISO is short for International Standardization for Organization. By being certified with ISO9001 Standard, a company portrays an image of a proper quality management system. The key purpose of this standard is to attract customers or for business expansion.
Therefore, it is not surprising that customer satisfaction is given a lot of focus. More satisfied customers would mean more people who are loyal to the company. Happy customers would most probably talk about the service or product to their friends, colleagues, family and associates. Some small companies, which practically had no advertising means except for word-of-mouth from one person to another person, grew into big businesses.
That is the power of customer satisfaction. Customer satisfaction comprises mainly of customer service, quality of product, technology, product design, delivery and cost. Good quality products or services at reasonable costs are bound to attract many customers. Excellent customer service is a vital pull factor for people as well.
When a customer complains or makes inquiries regarding a product or service, it is important to entertain the customer in a polite, responsive and professional way. In relation to this, addressing a customer complaint in a timely manner is vital. The concept of customer satisfaction should be customer comes first. If the customer’s complaint was justified, giving a free gift or voucher apart from replacing the poor quality product might satisfy the customer.
The same goes with poor quality of service. Pacifying and making the customer happy after the incident should be the goal. In such a case, the customer might continue to purchase the product or service from the company in spite of the customer complaint. Some organizations have special customer loyalty programs.
It could merely be a one-time program or a continuous loyalty program. One-time loyalty program might be a special discount sale, free Kamagra gift offers or purchase-with-purchase of products. A continuous loyalty program could be a special membership program for loyal customers. Loyal customers are given free and special membership cards based on their spending amount or duration with the company.
The membership cards could be used to buy products or services at reduced prices. Some people might have the chance to enjoy special promotions or discounts with affiliated companies. To put it briefly, acquiring and maintaining customer loyalty definitely plays a vital role in the success or failure of any business.
Author Bio: With over 17 years of experience, Loyalty One specializes in managing customer loyalty. They have the knowledge and expertise to maximize the effectiveness of your retail marketing. Some popular techniques include loyalty cards and a reward program.
Category: Business Management
Keywords: loyalty, customer, client, customer service, service, ISO, business, program, management, values