Customer loyalty is an important aspect of your business. Customer loyalty helps you retain customers and keeps them from buying your competitor’s products or using your competitor’s services. However, many businesses are not sure just how to drive customer loyalty. Believe it or not, emotions play a huge role in this. Here are five emotions that help to drive loyalty and why they play a role in it.
Satisfaction
First and foremost, customers need to be satisfied. If they are unhappy with your product or service or do not think it is worth the money, they will not be loyal to you, your product, or your business. Instead, they may shop around to find something that satisfies them or be loyal to prices rather than the brand.
Familiarity
Another emotion that is important when you are trying to build up loyalty with your customers is familiarity. Customers want to feel familiar with your business or product. Suppose you are constantly changing up your recipe, moving your business, having a high staff turnover, or making other changes often. In that case, customers may not feel the sense of familiarity that they want to feel. A lot of people do not like change, so they stick to something familiar and comforting to them. Obviously, there comes a point where you have to change so that your business or product does not become stale. But refrain from making too many changes often.
Inclusion
Customers want to feel like they are included and accepted. If people of all ages can use your product, but your marketing materials only target teenagers, others may not feel included or like the product is for them. Likewise, if people give you feedback about your product and you do not listen, they may feel like their opinion is not important to you, and in turn, they won’t feel the emotion of inclusion. This can cause people to turn to other products and not remain loyal to you.
Surprise
While customers want to feel a sense of familiarity, they also want to have the emotion of a good surprise. One of the best ways to positively drive this emotion is through emailed coupons, giveaways, or free products or services. This goodwill and generosity will surprise your loyal customers and keep them returning for more.
Appreciation
The last emotion that can help make customers loyal to your product or service is appreciation. Customers need to and want to feel appreciated by you and your business. If you don’t thank loyal customers, offer them special incentives, have customer appreciation days, or do something to make them feel appreciated, they may turn on you in favor of a company that evokes that emotion in them. Fortunately, there are many ways to make a customer feel appreciated.
The emotions that you can get your customers to feel can help to drive customer loyalty. This can help you retain customers, which ultimately can help to increase your bottom line.
