Keeping your customers happy is vital to running a successful business. Happy customers will leave better reviews and stay loyal to your company, making them more likely to spend money with you again and again!
In this article, we’re going to outline five different ways to keep your customers happy and earn their loyalty. Let’s get started.
Create a knowledge base to publish content people will keep coming back for
If you want people to make repeat purchases, you need to give them a reason to revisit your website time and time again. One of the most effective ways that you can do this is by publishing high-quality, informative content that your target audience will be interested in.
To come up with content ideas, start by looking at what your competitors are doing. This will give you an idea of what people interested in your business want to read. You can also see what topics people haven’t covered yet.
You should conduct some keyword research, too. Keywords are the words and phrases that people plug into search engines in order to find content like yours. So, head to a tool like Google Keyword Planner with a list of words and phrases related to your business. Plug them into the planner, and Google will provide you with a list of keywords based on their competitiveness, or how hard they are to rank for, and their average monthly search volumes.
You can use these keywords as topic inspiration, or many of them will work as subject matter on their own. If you weave these keywords into your article, they’ll be more likely to appear on the search engine results pages (SERPs) for queries related to your business. Once people see you publish helpful content they’re interested in, they’ll be more likely to stay loyal, thanks to the powerful CRM tool.
Let’s take a look at a few examples of businesses that have great content on their websites for inspiration.
Musician Authority, a website that specializes in teaching new musicians how to play different instruments, has a ton of great content on their website. Their article on easy guitar songs for beginners, for instance, outlines several different songs that are easy for people to learn. This article is very helpful for their target audience, and people who read this article will know that Musician Authority has great content that helps with learning new instruments, making them more likely to come back in the future.
Consider publishing similar listicles on your website if it’s likely your audience will find them valuable. If you can show your customers that you can help them get started in your field or niche, they’ll be likely to remain loyal to you!
HubSpot, a digital marketing company, has helpful content on its website, as well. In their article titled “How to Write a Blog Post,” they outline the best practices for creating web content. They discuss what makes a good blog post, what to include, and more. By explaining this for their audience, who are primarily people getting started in digital marketing, HubSpot can help website visitors and make it more likely that they’ll stay loyal to their business.
Consider providing valuable step-by-step guides for your customers. These can help people hit the ground running with different processes in your niche. If your guide helps the reader, they’ll be more likely to make a purchase and then stay loyal to your brand!
Make sure you’re consistently active on social media
One of the easiest ways to regularly communicate with your customers is through social media. If you’re consistently active on social media, you’ll be at the top of your customers’ minds. This makes it great for building customer loyalty because people will be more likely to shop with your business if they constantly see your posts.
Keep in mind that different social media platforms will work better for different businesses. If you have the means to create a lot of visual content, Instagram and TikTok are solid options. If you are just looking for the largest user base, Facebook is the obvious choice. If you market mostly to other businesses and professionals, definitely go with LinkedIn.
Once you choose your platform, be sure to post regularly — at least every few days or so. And don’t be afraid to like and reply when your followers leave a comment — this will make them feel more connected to your business and increase their loyalty.
Provide advice and support post-purchase
Your relationship with customers shouldn’t end as soon as they spend money with you. Providing post-purchase help and advice is very important for building customer loyalty! Here are a couple of different ways you can provide post-purchase help and advice for your customers:
- Follow up with customers via email and ask about their purchase
- Offer product demonstrations and guides
- Create post-purchase content, like maintenance guides
Let’s take a look at a few examples of businesses that have great post-purchase content for inspiration.
Helix Hearing Care, a supplier of hearing aids and tests, has very helpful maintenance guides on their website. As you can see in the image above, they have a series of dos and don’ts for hearing aid care. This is a very helpful guide for their past customers and, if they come to the website and find this article helpful, they’ll be more likely to remain loyal to Helix Hearing Care.
Consider doing something similar on your website. Create a simple maintenance guide that can help your past customers take care of your products. If they find your guide to be helpful, they’ll trust you more as a business and stay loyal.
Keurig, a coffee maker company, has similarly helpful guides on its website. Keurig Brewers can be a bit tricky to clean, and the company knows that! To help out people who enjoy their products, they have cleaning tips on their website. This solves a pain point for their customers — it’s difficult to clean the brand’s products sometimes, but these guides can help. By solving this common pain point, Keurig can help ensure that their customers stay loyal.
Think about what pain points your customers have when it comes to using or maintaining what you sell. If you can create helpful guides that solve these problems, people will grow to trust you and be more likely to stay loyal to your business.
Offer the best possible customer service
You want to make it as easy as possible for people to get in touch with you if they have questions, concerns, or complaints. People like to communicate in different ways, so you need to cater to as many different preferences as possible by offering multiple ways for people to get in touch with your eCommerce business.
You can offer customer service over email, phone, social media, and live chat, for instance. Just keep in mind that you should only offer the services you know your team can handle. Taking a multi-channel approach is the best way to keep customers happy, but you don’t want to spread your team out too thin, as it can cause burnout or lead to balls being dropped.
Here are a few tips for ensuring that you offer the best customer service possible:
- Empathize with your customers
- Actively listen to their problems and offer solutions
- Use positive language
- Be sure your customer service team is very familiar with your products or services
- Communicate with them clearly
- Admit mistakes and offer solutions
Let’s look at an example of a company that has great customer service options as inspiration.
Verizon, a wireless service provider, offers great customer service. Because they’re such a large company, they can provide a ton of different options. As you can see above, a website visitor first clicks on the topic they need help with. From there, they choose if they want to email, live chat, text, or get phone call support. This saves both Verizon and customers time by sending people to the right department. It also helps the company provide the best service possible, which is sure to help them win their customers’ loyalty.
Be sure that it’s clear to your customers where they need to go to get in touch with your customer service department. Save them as much time as you can by streamlining the process — this will help you provide top-notch customer service and increase your customers’ loyalty.
Make your shopping experience friction-free
If it isn’t clear to customers how they can take the next step with you, or if it’s hard for them to do so, they might leave your website without making a purchase. You can make the buying process as simple as possible and remove any friction in a lot of different ways!
Here are some tactics you could use:
- Offer a sophisticated search tool that takes users to the products they want
- Use simple and clear calls to action (CTAs)
- Make your contact options easy to find and access
Let’s take a look at a few examples of businesses that provide a great customer experience for inspiration.
Rainbow Movers, a moving company in California, makes it easy for people to get in touch on their long-distance moving page. As you can see in the image above, website visitors can quickly and easily plug in their information to get a quote. This makes it very easy for people to take the next step with Rainbow Movers. And, because it’s so simple, it can encourage sales and people will be more likely to invest in the company’s services again after having such a positive experience the first time.
Consider taking inspiration from this website. Provide a clear place for people to get in touch with you! This will encourage prospective clients to contact your team, making it more likely that they’ll make a purchase and return when they require your services again.
The Tinker Law Firm PLLC, a medical malpractice law firm in Seattle, makes it easy for people to get in touch, as well. As you can see in the image above, there is a form on the right-hand side of their page where a website visitor can plug in their contact information and a message outlining some of the details of their case. Calling a lawyer can be intimidating, but this form makes it easier for people to get in touch. This helps the Tinker Law Firm PLLC draw new customers into their business and make them more likely to hire them again in the future.
Consider offering a contact form on your website, and call back the customers that get in touch. This will encourage people to contact you if they need help and, if you provide them with a positive experience, they’ll be likely to hire you time and time again.
Finally, Truthfinder, a company that allows people to search public records, helps people get started with their business on their homepage. The user only needs to plug in a little bit of basic information about the person they’re looking for. The process to get started is simple, and people who become customers will remember how easy it was. This will make it more likely that they become loyal customers down the road.
On your website, consider only asking for a small amount of information in order to get people started with your business. This will make it easier for people to spend money with you and, if they have an easy time of hiring you and using your services, they’ll be more likely to become loyal customers!
Summary
Earning your customers’ loyalty is vital for running a successful business. In this article, we outlined how you can do this by staying active on social media, providing a great customer experience, and publishing top-notch content.
Need more help? Check out the LiveWin business blog. They have articles on optimizing your content, email marketing, and more.