Customer loyalty plays a crucial role in how successful and lucrative a business is. This applies to both service providers and product retailers – every company strives to ensure that customers don’t use them just the once but instead come back often, bringing a regular income with them. This also involves the intention to beat the competitors and to prevent customers turning to other businesses instead. Successful customer loyalty breeds trust and keeps people close by.
A lot of companies put a lot of time and energy into building a customer base, i.e. winning over new customers. However, in the process, a lot of them forget just how critical it is to also make sure existing customer relationships are maintained and strengthened. Happy customers or users that stay faithful to a company over a long period of time are much more valuable for the success of a business as they will share their experiences with others. Positive exchanges via word-of-mouth recommendations and online reviews improve referral rates for a company, which by default brings in new customers. This process can be referred to as referral marketing.
Happy regular customers don't just contribute to the image and earnings of a company – they also significantly help with improving everyday processes. For example, it is rarer for regular customers to criticize a product, and if they do, the customer communication is usually more positive as they have already had good experiences in the past. Furthermore, regular customers often provide useful feedback to help the company improve its services. This can be obtained through direct discussions or gathered via technical tools such as online surveys.