Customer Loyalty: What Makes an Impact

There’s no question that loyal customers are a valuable asset to businesses. They offer repeat business, they refer new customers (which drastically cuts the cost of customer acquisition), they advocate for your brand — the list goes on and on. 

But gaining customer loyalty is no simple task. To do so, businesses have to build trust with their audience and provide a positive customer experience to keep shoppers happy. 

Luckily, there are some things businesses can do right now to increase their customer loyalty. Here, we’ll unpack 3 of them and explain how they can help you turn one-time shoppers into loyal customers. 

Offer Loyalty Programs

Customers love perks, coupons, and benefits. So much so, in fact, that 78% of shoppers choose to stay with brands that have great loyalty programs, and 72% of customers are likely to recommend those brands to friends and family. 

For retail and eCommerce businesses, this presents a golden opportunity. By creating an enticing loyalty program, you can not only better target certain segments of your audience, but you can improve your overall customer experience. And, by extension, you can win over a loyal group of frequent shoppers. 

Great Customer Service

The power of customer service is astounding. This year, it was reported that 93% of customers are likely to make repeat purchases from companies that deliver excellent customer service. And just a few years ago, Bain and Company found that businesses that prioritized great customer service could increase their revenue by 4-8%. 

That means, if retail and eCommerce businesses want to gain and maintain customer loyalty, they need to take a good hard look at their customer service operations and find ways to improve. They need to pinpoint their customers’ needs and find better ways to meet them. And they need to consistently reach customers where they’re at — whether that’s via phone, email, social media, live chat or text. 

In some cases, they may also need to find a 3rd party customer service solution like Radial Customer Care to manage customer questions and resolve issues. Being a mix of call center software and a professional customer support team, Radial Customer Care handles everything from tech support to order tracking — making it one of the top call center companies on the market and the best customer service outsourcing solution for retail and eCommerce brands.

Fast & Accurate Fulfillment 

Whether you offer an eCommerce shopping experience or not, it’s important to have a clear process for moving products from the warehouse to the truck and into your customers’ carts. Otherwise, you can end up with slow order fulfillment, lots of backorders, and low customer satisfaction. 

At the same time, you need to make sure your presentation is on-point — no matter how busy you are. Products need to be placed into their packaging properly, and the packaging should consistently reflect your brand. If they don’t, customers may get frustrated or feel undervalued. 

Fortunately, there’s an easy way to make all aspects of your fulfillment process run smoothly. All you need is an order management system (OMS). Using an OMS solution from an eCommerce partner like Radial, you can view inventory across your organization, map the best fulfillment routes for orders, alert customers and associates on order arrival times, and track inventory while in transit. You can even leverage dropship order management to streamline fulfillment between suppliers and buyers. 

Acquiring customers is hard. But if you want to compete in the retail and eCommerce space, it isn’t enough. You have to turn those shoppers into lifelong customers. The good news is, increasing customer loyalty isn’t rocket science. You just have to optimize your processes and integrate the right tools into your operations.