Like it or not, if your business is losing customers then customer loyalty is the key to long-term business profits.
Every day, a new business comes up. For consumers, marketplaces can feel like a cold, uncaring place full of sellers who are only concerned about their money. Too many spam emails, aggressive ads, and best deal pitches everywhere they look. They are significantly incentivized, hopping from one business to another, never staying long enough to become brand advocates.
As per a research from McKinsey & Company, only 13 percent of customers stay loyal to a single brand.
This behavioral shift is putting the established marketing tactics in doubt. But, are we as marketers unable to stop it? Here are the top 5 reasons due to which you might be losing out your customers:
#1. Failing to meet customer expectations
Quality is undoubtedly the major deal-breaker for most customers. For customer retention, it is vital that you understand the requirements of your customers. As per Neilson’s report, 26% of the consumers switch brands due to the quality issues. The necessity of high-quality products that meet or exceed the customer’s expectation is mandatory to create brand loyalty.
#2. Poor customer service
Good customer service is one of the principal reasons why people stick to a brand. For a customer, your support team is your business. Often, we see that the different departments of a business such as support and sales lack coordination and understanding. This results in poor customer experience. Sour customer experience can ultimately lead to a loss of the client.
Pro tip: Pay attention to your customer service policies and the performance of your support agents. These days companies like Shiprocket create customer support-focused accounts on Quora. These type of accounts are public and help customers in getting their problems resolved quickly.
#3. Lack of unique relevance to consumers
Making your product stand out from the competition is really important for your products to get repeat purchases. Diligent efforts should be made to put into focus what role the brand should play in a customer’s life. They obviously look for something unique. Thereby, the businesses should come up with something different.
Pro tip: It is recommended that you choose an attractive theme for your store front. Choosing a theme for your store helps you stand out from the lot. Also, you can always hire freelancers if you are unsure of designing something unique.
#4. Price
Having the ‘price’ on our list might sound like a cliche, but the price is always a linchpin for customer loyalty and retention. It is undoubtedly one of the biggest attributes that causes customers to switch services. Customers often fight the temptation to jump onto the ‘cheap’ train. Today, customers can get a price comparison within a few clicks, making it easy to find a better deal elsewhere. You must ensure that to help them, by offering more than just a good deal.
#5. Poor shipping experience
The entire process of purchasing a product can go flak if it is not shipped and delivered on time. Careless shipping has a huge negative impact on customer experience. If the customer gets the product lot later than the expected or mentioned date, the product is damaged or the shipping cost is too much, then it is beyond doubt that he/she will never shop from the same site or marketplace again.
Pro tip: To improve the shipping experience, it is recommended that you use a courier aggregator like Shiprocket. It gives you a pool of courier partners and recommends the best out of all by analyzing the priorities of your business.
Going back to the basics is an ideal solution
With the advent of digital technologies, there is a huge difference between the expectations of the customers and what is actually being offered. Every industry is observing transparency, the result of which is strong on pricing. Businesses need to consider the fundamentals of their business models. They can either work more efficiently to sell products cheaper or add some unique value to the products to justify higher prices.
But, the reality showcases that businesses really need to do both if they wish to survive in the long run. The solution lies on a deeper level and hence only marketing won’t be enough. A new customer-relations card or a fancy new advertising campaign won’t set the customer loyalty curve straight. The leaders at the top of the business should work towards adding value to their offerings and customer experiences.
