You help lots of people buy your products. But if you want to increase customer loyalty this year, you’re better off helping people use your products.
Researchers recently found four distinct differences between super successful companies and OK companies. Most of it comes down to the customer experience each company offers from the get-go.
“Where traditional brands focus on positioning their brands in the minds of their customers, digital brands focus on positioning their brands in the lives of their customers,” say Mark Bonchek and Vivek Bapat, two of the researchers behind the study that appeared in the Harvard Business Review.
Affect lives, not minds
Here are the four factors that make a difference in customer loyalty success:
- Usage. The best companies create a demand for the use of their products or services. So you want to give them instructions on using your solutions, ways to interact with other customers who also use them and ideas for new or different ways to use your solutions. Then they’ll turn to your products or services more often – and think well of the experience each time.
- Advocacy. All companies promote what they do best or what they want customers to purchase. But the best companies give customers more ways to be involved with the experience. For instance, some offer gamification through apps, social media groups, photo sharing – all things that get customers talking about their experience and saying, “This is really great” to others.
- Word-of-mouth. All companies think about the message they want to send customers. The best companies think about the message they want their customers to share with others. They focus on creating experiences that their customers will say positive things about and can’t wait to tell others. They encourage feedback on social media and other public platforms.
- Experience. All companies try to shape what people think about them along their way to buying. The best companies do, too, but they influence those thoughts with better experiences at every touchpoint. They stay in contact, create unique experiences and ask for feedback throughout the journey.
