What drives customer loyalty in the digital age? This is a question that every marketer and business leader should ask themselves. Some people may say that it all comes down to having a great product-market fit, however, the research that we will share with you here suggests that there are more factors at play than quality.
Most businesses invest a lot of money in brand awareness, but what is equally important is focusing on retaining your current customer base and actively incentivising them to become even more loyal. Research from HubSpot & Zendesk suggests that it costs 6-7 times less to retain a customer than to obtain a new one.
As you can tell from the graph above, quality and customer service is seen as more important than price. Quality is important for the obvious reasons, but it may come as a surprise to some that customer service is considered to be this important.
It's becoming increasingly clear that frictionless customer service and seamless customer experiences are top priorities that more brands should focus on. It's these two aspects that really builds your brand's reputation and creates loyal customers. An example of a brand that really gets the importance of this is the Australian skincare company, Aesop. What sets them apart from similar skincare brands is their heavy focus on creating great instore experiences. They've realised that customers not only evaluate your brand from the quality of the products but also from the experience they have when interacting with the brand. For further reading about Aesop check out this blog post - How Aesop Creates Unique And Compelling Customer Experiences.
Aesop's signature store in Stockholm, Sweden.
At Thinque we encourage you to identify your key customer pain points and really think about how you can weave together your brand touchpoints so that you enable an experience that seamlessly helps and inspires your customers to achieve their goals.