Within a company, customer loyalty allows to maintain a good profitability. More than that, it brings together more advocates of your brand .

In reality, many companies have difficulty retaining customers because they are often focused on acquisition. As a rule, the cost of retention is always lower than the cost of acquisition . Indeed, simple loyalty initiatives can make a big difference.

The fact is that the loyal customer requires less support than the new one. This results in a reduction of communication and media costs . Moreover, studies have shown that conquering customers costs 2 to 3 times more than loyalty actions in direct and indirect costs .

Above all, it is important to develop the discipline and attitude necessary to put customer satisfaction first. Next, note that to design a good retention strategy, you need to have good KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) . Having accurate information about your customers will help you make the right decisions.

Thus, beyond the quality of the services, you can undertake several post-sale actions. The first step to building customer loyalty is to manage your relationships with your customers.

In the next few lines, you will discover how to build customer loyalty.

1. Prioritize service excellence

If the company has made the sale, we assume that it offers a good product or service. So when we think about retention, the main concern is to ensure that the customer experience meets expectations.

The service team has a huge responsibility in this scenario. Indeed, it often happens that the customer buys, but is not able to take advantage of the benefits due to internal failures.

In this case, the main objective is to optimize the service process, looking for the best way to use the acquired resources .

2. Present concrete results

It is important to be responsive to customer requests . However, efforts will have little effect if the company cannot concretely demonstrate its value.

The service provided does not always have an immediate effect on the company's results. That's why it's necessary to gather information that helps your operations team better understand the benefits you are achieving.

In an ideal scenario, you should follow up with each new business (B2B), or individual buyer (B2C) and check in with them frequently . For those who work with large volumes of accounts, automated systems can be very useful. However, it is also important to evaluate the possibility of having professionals dedicated to this task. In any case, any company that keeps track of its buyers can develop loyalty actions for the base.

In this regard, you can use Magileads' B2B acquisition and retention platform. Marketing automation software allows you to collect valuable information about your customers so you can design a good retention strategy.

3. Say what the customer wants to hear

This may sound like a cliché, but it has everything to do with successful retention strategies. Be careful, it is not a question of “disappointing” the customer, but of understanding his requests and responding to them .

The operations team needs a well-segmented base for this type of strategy, as well as ensuring that there is room for dialogue. Customer service feedback is important, but we must also consider the possibility of systematizing the evaluation of customer satisfaction .

NPS methodologies are relatively simple and can be of great help. Make sure you create the conditions to respond individually to the most critical cases.

It makes no sense to ignore the fact that a customer is not completely satisfied with your services. Often, a simple phone call can help us understand what the problem is and provide an answer.

4. Organize around the customer, not the company

It is often necessary to recognize that the path chosen to perform a certain task is not ideal from the customer's perspective, even if it supports daily operations.

Radical measures are likely to be met with internal resistance. Understand objections as an obstacle that can be overcome by showing results that can be achieved in the long run.

5. Promote your brand

It is important to have a well-structured communication plan designed around the customer's journey through the company . Remember that valuing customer relationships means, for example, understanding that current customers should be the first to know about new developments in your product or service.

In practice, this can be difficult, but your company must be careful not to neglect the post-sale processes.

The ideal is to always invest on both fronts (acquisition and retention). After all, nothing is better than having a 100% stable base and constantly working to expand it.

6. Track critical indicators

Customer retention initiatives do not always require significant operational efforts. The most important thing is the discipline to direct activities towards customer satisfaction .

Keep in mind that by properly managing your relationship with customers, you will not only keep the customer satisfied, but you will also detect new business opportunities .

To do this, you should, for example, closely monitor the company's churn rate, which is critical to measuring the sales team's effectiveness in maintaining revenue .