Among the hardest-hit industries by the COVID-19 pandemic is the retail industry, as well as businesses that offer services such as tourism and hospitality. As people’s spending power got severely affected by the economic downfall due to the pandemic, so was their ability to spend on products and services from their trusted businesses.
At the height of the crisis, businesses with similar services and products engaged in cutthroat competition to gain the attention and loyalty of customers. Some customers, on the other hand, ditched their loyalty and settled for businesses that can give them the best bang-for-buck products and services. It was a truly trying time for many businesses; a situation where they needed to step up or face the possibility of bankruptcy or temporary closure.
If you’re trying to think of ways on how you can build customer loyalty and maintain it throughout the COVID-19 crisis, be sure to consider these five tricks:
Run an incentives program
People naturally love a form of reward for things that they do. In education, it’s called extrinsic motivation — a kind of motivation that comes from outside sources in the form of praise, benefits, and rewards.
Aside from the teaching-learning process, extrinsic motivation can also be used in business, in the form of rebates and incentive programs to attract potential customers. Whether you’re selling consumer products or providing skilled services, giving your clients such perks would entice them to continue patronizing your business.
Over time, you may not have to offer them any rewards for their loyalty, since people would typically give it to businesses that they genuinely liked. But, for starters, this trick should get the ball rolling in reeling in your first loyal customers.
Give customers the best products or services
Customers all want to see that they are getting their hard-earned money’s worth with the products and services that they receive from businesses, whether big or small. The only way you can give your customers that kind of satisfaction is by ensuring unmatched quality in terms of the services or products that your business offers.
Keep in mind that it takes a long time to build customer trust and only seconds to destroy it. As such, you should guarantee their satisfaction with every product or every service that you give them if you want to gain their loyalty for a long time.
Innovate and adapt to changes
Among the biggest blunders that any business owner can do is to think that there is no need to adapt to changes that are shaping the industry. For many years now, technology has been among the biggest factors that allow businesses to thrive and reach the far corners of the globe.
Today, businesses that enjoy a great deal of success are those that have fully embraced the need for digital transformation. As such, you should invest in doing the same move for your business if you want to capture clients amid the pandemic.
By innovating and adapting to the digital business realm, you can capture customers who have relied heavily on online ordering and scheduling for their needed services and consumer products. With a dedicated website and social media channels, your business can serve at-home clients and gain their support and loyalty in the process.
Always provide an excellent customer experience
As mentioned, gaining customer loyalty takes a long time to achieve but can be lost all too quickly. Knowing this, you must ensure that your business will always give your customers an excellent experience each time you do business with them.
You can guarantee this by hiring a dedicated team to monitor your official business email account, website, and social media accounts to address customer’s concerns in real-time. The pandemic has made it practically a must for businesses to allocate funding and manpower to their customer service, given that many customers are exclusively interacting through digital means.
With such resources meant to handle customer concerns, you can ensure your customers’ happiness with the way your business pays attention to them. Ultimately, this will help you gain their trust and loyalty, which are things that not all businesses succeed in getting.
Make customers see you’re not all about making money
At the height of the pandemic’s rage, a lot of businesses stepped up and offered their products and services for free or at highly discounted rates. For them, it was their way of helping out affected customers and their business’ way of giving back to them for their loyalty. You, too, should try out this noble approach if you want to endear your business to your customers.
You can offer your products or services at bargain rates or you can offer freebies from time to time. You can also make small donations to the community or launch your own outreach program.
Just follow these simple tricks and you’ll surely have your customers’ loyalty for a very long time.