7 tips on how to build customer loyalty

Social Media Specialist
Updated 25 April, 2024
Lauren Taylor
Social Media Specialist
Reading time — 9 minutes

Building customer loyalty is a goal of any marketing company. It is a crucial aspect of a company’s activities whether it is small or big. What's more, having increased it, a brand should work on the retention.

In the presence of global competition, businesses need to provide the best possible service, and brand loyalty is a useful indicator of how well this mission is being carried out.

Customer loyalty definition

Customer loyalty is the clients’ determination to continue their cooperation with the company. It stems from the positive opinion about the company’s product and the general service. The more satisfied the clients are, the more they will be likely to place new orders and remain loyal over a long time.

Now that we know the meaning, let's see why you need customer loyalty and how to build it.

Why building customer loyalty is important?

There are three main reasons you should focus on building customer loyalty and work on increasing it. 

  • According to the statistics, loyal customers spend 67% more money than new buyers.
  • Keeping the existing clients loyal takes several times less money and effort than attracting new ones. The latter is impossible without costly marketing tools.
  • Loyal customers more willingly recommend their favorite brand to their family, colleagues, and friends. It means they will provide your business with new happy customers without all those expenses we have just mentioned.

As you can see, if you build customer loyalty and work on retention, it is beneficial for your revenue, and it is a great help in developing your brand in general. 

How to build and increase customer loyalty in 7 steps

There are a number of useful tips that you should use to build or increase customer loyalty.

Run your website

It is vital to make your website user-friendly if you want to build customer loyalty and improve retention. Remember, many people opt out of brands just because they were not satisfied with what they saw when first visiting their websites. 

A good website loads fast on mobile devices because people increasingly more often surf the internet using their phones. What's more, you need to make sure that it's easy to navigate to different pages on your websites. People should manage to quickly find necessary information, order products regardless of their computer skills.

All these are possible if you create your business website in drag-and-drop web builders. We recommend Taplink if you want to create a good website that will be a help in building customer loyalty, and here we explained why. In short, you can do it without programming and design skills in less than 15 minutes there. Use templates for this. 

Here are page templates. Follow the links to get the page templates after a free sign-up.

The brands have two different business approaches, but they both have websites made on Taplink. They put information about the products on offer and buy buttons on their websites. This improves users' shopping experience. And good shopping experience is necessary if you want to build customer loyalty.

Offer customer loyalty programs

A customer loyalty marketing program is a set of ideas aimed at making customers engaged with the company in the long term. It makes them interested in future purchases. This is essential when you have just opened and begun to build customer loyalty.

Marketers have developed effective programs for improving customer loyalty and retention. They are widely used by numerous famous brands. You can use them to increase the loyalty too. Let us give you some examples of such programs.

  • Point-based customer loyalty program motivates customers to spend more money for your brand because it gives them more points. They can redeem them for exclusive products or use them to pay a part of the total cost. For example, a coffee shop can build customer loyalty by offering to buy three drinks and get the fourth for free.
  • Paid customer loyalty program. These programs encourage clients to pay a monthly or annual fee for membership with access to exclusive benefits. The programs provide different levels of loyalty, with each upgraded level ensuring more customer bonuses.

The more benefits a customer sees ahead, the more they are likely to stay loyal.

Keep in touch with your clients

Receiving messages from your brand frequently, people feel you value and care for them. And this is important if you build customer loyalty or want to increase it. Make up a base of your clients with their contact information (email addresses, phone numbers, etc.) to make the process easier.

Send marketing messages daily or weekly to communicate with your clients and inform them about your updates. This may be whatever you think is necessary: current discounts, special offers, your company's events. Besides, every customer will be happy to receive a Christmas greeting or a personal birthday discount.

The last, but not the least tip to build customer loyalty using the messages: keep the number reasonable and avoid messages that are mere advertisements. 

Watch your service quality

Research shows that around half of all customers end their relationship with a brand because of being unhappy with the service quality. It happens even when the product itself is totally alright. This is the thing to work on when you build customer loyalty.

Processing and fulfilling orders timely are the first vital things you need if you want to build customer loyalty or retain it. Another important thing is working on the users' experience. Make sure they can easily buy a product or contact you.

Now, let's see what makes you stand out and increase customer loyalty. Friendly communication, proper customer service on social media: dealing every single issue no matter whether it is big or small. These are what brings your service to the next level. Which means your clients are happy with the service quality and retain loyal to your brand.

Present your brand on social media

A brand should have accounts on social networks to build customer loyalty. People are not likely to trust you if you don't have a profile page at least on one of them. On the other hand, if you actively post and communicate with users there, it boosts your customer loyalty.

If you don't have a lot of time, or money for a social media specialist, start with one social network. Choose the one that your audience uses most often. As a rule, it is Facebook or Instagram. TikTok and Twitter are second popular.

What's more, social media networks are perfect for communicating with your clients. And as we said before, this is vital for building customer loyalty. Use socials to announce new offers, conduct contests, or publish interesting information about the brand's products and services.

Such microblogs are often more popular than official websites, and posts there are easier for loyal customers to be shared with friends. 

Provide bonuses for the most loyal clients

The more loyal to a brand a client is, the more effort you should take for their retention. Provide extra bonuses and special services to those who've been staying with your brand for most long. This may be a personal manager, the privilege to skip the line, or the best prices and ordering terms when buying a new product that the company has just launched on the market.

Allow your customer to talk you up

Have you ever noticed that many giant companies have tremendously loyal customers who can go on providing arguments in favor of the brand they love for hours? It is because such clients have numerous opportunities to show their loyalty.

Here are a few examples of what you can do in this regard to build customer loyalty. Offer your loyal customers new products and branded items (baseball caps, mugs, smartphone cases, etc.), organize annual brunches and other private events, and use catchy slogans and hashtags.

All these create a sense of community and let your customers be happy to manifest their brand loyalty and retention. 

Measuring customer loyalty

When you build customer loyalty, you should also know how to measure it. Otherwise, how can you tell you are going the right way or moving somewhere at all? It makes no sense without it. 

Customer loyalty measuring involves using the clients' experience and operation data metrics. Think about the following indicators:

1. Net promoter score (NPS)

NPS consists basically of asking your customers "how likely are you to recommend our brand to your friends?". This allows for measuring the loyalty you've built. Clients may be invited to answer this question in a post-delivery email or phone call. The most loyal give the highest rate. 

2. Customer loyalty index (CLI)

CLI includes several aspects of customer loyalty. The measuring estimates repeat purchases (when an existing client places an order again) and multiple purchases (when a customer starts with buying one product and then turns the attention to other goods as well). These things directly reflect what you have built.

3. Engagement

Here you should measure how the customers are engaged with your brand. This indicator is based on how often they visit your website, like your posts on social media, and leave reviews on the company’s products. When you have succeeded to build brand loyalty, you see high numbers.

Yet, it should be borne in mind that customer loyalty is not a statistical parameter that can easily be measured with the help of various mathematical tools. It is an image that you build, it is about happiness and devotion, so be sure that you allow for these non-material values while assessing your brand loyalty.

Brand loyalty program examples

Many world-renowned brands have introduced customer loyalty programs that are highly appreciated by clients. This is securing their unfading popularity and customer retention. Here are some of the customer loyalty program examples:

  • Starbucks provides the opportunity to collect loyalty points and exchange them for free food and drinks
  • The North Face's clients are allowed to gain points that can be further redeemed for unique traveling experiences.
  • Amazon Prime provides its loyal customers with access to a bunch of beneficial options including free shipping. 
  • Sephora. This beauty giant grants points which can be exchanged for something handy at the weekly Rewards Bazaar.
  • Uber has a smart program with several benefits ranging from free miles to priority pickups.

As we see, all the above-mentioned companies offer different reward programs focused on their target audiences. These strategies proved to be incredibly effective in building customer loyalty. Their clients will hardly ever go to the rivals.

3 marketing tips for building customer loyalty

Modern businesses are in constant search of new marketing tools that could help to build and increase their customer loyalty. Apart from the most widespread ones, there are a few less obvious ideas to be considered:

1. Respond quickly

Clients value their time no less than you value yours, so, you should not underestimate the importance of ensuring a prompt reaction to all customer inquiries. This affects the service quality, which is instrumental in building your brand loyalty. 

2. Be honest about the issues

Things in business do not always go as planned. Don't let failures ruin your brand. Use them to build trust and customer loyalty.

Instead of denying a problem, share your concerns with your customers, and don’t forget to provide regular updates until the issue is over. Customers will appreciate your honesty. Thus, you can turn the problems into a tool for increasing your brand loyalty. 

3. Work on the clients' experience

Every client matters when you build customer loyalty. And once you get a new client, you get the only chance to make them loyal. The first impression is crucial, so, you better make sure it is perfect. Create a link in bio page and use it in your social accounts for this. You can create one on Taplink.

The bottom line

Building customer loyalty is a complex marketing process that should always be the focus of every company’s management.

Using contemporary tools, every business can elaborate an efficient brand loyalty program that will boost the company’s profits and make it a permanent choice for as many customers as possible.