A customer who is not nurtured will eventually go elsewhere. You and your marketing team must make it worthwhile for customers to stay. Not just with great prices or better deals than elsewhere but by adding value to their experience. Whether that’s through a loyalty scheme, rewards for repeat visits, or other incentives and promotions (including but not limited to discounted gift vouchers).
But how do you know if you are doing enough to nurture your customers? And what can you do more?
Some companies do not care about nurturing the customer; they understand the importance of bringing in new customers but don’t understand that they need to retain an existing customer. Encouraging success will help your client get back on track and ensure they don’t become another statistic on the high street.
Read to learn the five essential features to ensure your customers return again and again.
Trust
Trust is crucial for maintaining a good relationship with your customer. Deliver on promises. Stay loyal to original offers. Don’t exclude them from new requests. They’ve been there before new customers, so treat them that way. Make your customers feel appreciated. Harvard Business Review says that “acquiring a new customer is anywhere from 5 to 25 times more expensive than retaining an existing one.”
Trust is important because it leads to loyalty—and loyalty leads to more sales. The more loyal customers you have, the less effort it takes to sell to them again (or for the first time). And that means more money for your business!
But how does trust come about? The key is consistency and reliability—doing what you say when you’re going to do it every time. If someone buys a product from me and then sees on social media that I’m complaining about poor quality or service from another supplier, they will think twice before buying from me again.
Authenticity
Getting caught up in the idea that you must be a company with a logo and a brand name is easy. But the truth is, you are a person first and everything else second. It’s okay to be yourself!
Share stories about yourself and what inspires you or how you came up with the idea for your business in the first place (or why it was vital for you to start it). If you have interesting hobbies or life experiences that can relate to what you sell, share those too! Your customers will appreciate knowing more about who you are as a person rather than just seeing a logo or name on a website or storefront. Having a sense of who you are as a brand makes them trust and support your brand because they feel they know who you are as an individual (and not just someone trying to sell them something).
Get Social
Building a community online that your customers can be part of is essential. You can open up the channels for more communication when you have a customer group or online community. You can share exciting topics, get conversations started, and do a spot of market research to see what you can help your customers with.
There are many different ways to build an online community. A great way to start is by creating a Facebook group or page. You can also create an Instagram account and add people with similar interests.
If you’re more into blogging, then setting up blog posts with related topics will allow people to comment on them and engage in conversation with each other. You can also incorporate humor in your social content marketing to make it more engaging to your audience. If you’re unsure what content to post, look at what other brands are doing with their social media accounts and make it an inspiration!
Listen
When you take the time to listen to your customers and then respond to their concerns openly and honestly, it shows that you care about and appreciate them. In turn, they will trust you more, do business with you again, and even become brand advocates.
The best place to start is with surveys. Surveys can be very informal; a quick Google search will provide you with more information than you could ever need on how to conduct one. Many consumer research companies can help if you want someone else to handle the survey. The more opportunities your customers have to share their feedback with you, the better your chances of making things right when something goes wrong and being able to delight them when things go right!
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In summary, nurturing customer relationships is crucial to long-term business success. Whether you have a large or small list, managing it well will help you to retain customers, develop more effective marketing tactics, and position yourself as an expert in your niche.
Like all relationships, nurturing your customer relationships can be a challenge. It requires you to be present and aware of the relationship. You must care about your customers and allocate the time to stay connected with them. Did you find this article helpful? Please post your feedback below, and if you need help nurturing your client, give us a call!
