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Your customers are the lifeblood of your business. Indeed, if you create an army of loyal customers and keep them happy, your business will thrive.

What is customer loyalty and why should you care about it?

Customer loyalty is a strategic practice for businesses to attract and retain clients through great customer service and marketing tactics. It describes the extent to which a particular customer is devoted to the products and services of a particular company. This is dependent on a consistently positive customer experience as well.

According to the White House Office of Consumer Affairs, a loyal customer can be worth ten times more than their first purchase for any company. See why you shouldn’t ignore this?

What’s there to gain?

The thing is there are rewards and results for whatever experience you provide to your clients.

Research has shown that more than 60% of consumers can switch sides from a favorite brand to a new one for a better service experience. For your small business, no reward can be greater than landing more clients and netting more sales.

If however, you choose to be satisfied with sub-par or poor customer service, there are of course punishments as well. Mind you, this can be very costly because bad news spread like wildfire.

According to the same White House Office of Consumer Affairs, information about poor services tends to travel twice as faster than news of good customer experience.

Can you really afford to scare present clients and future prospects away?

Along with helping you retain current clientele and build customer loyalty, providing excellent service is in itself a form of marketing that also helps you land new prospects. It’s left for you to use this info to your advantage!

How do you build customer loyalty for your small business?

Building a brand that customer loves is what usually precedes customer loyalty. If your clients are satisfied and happy with your services, chances are high that they’ll continue to patronize you whenever they need such services again.

While most established companies usually don’t see this as a very big challenge, small businesses without the deep pockets of larger corporations often tend to struggle. However, most people don’t usually understand the challenge.

To start with, small businesses have some sort of advantage when you look at things critically. Because of their size, it’s relatively easy for them to offer services that are personalized to meet client needs.

As it turns out, many small businesses fail at this sometimes due to their belief that they can’t really do something significant because of their budget. Other times, they overdo and actually create a company with a lovable brand while the company continues to sink deep into losses from expenses, on the other hand.

Bottom Line

Overall, it pays to stay committed to providing excellent customer service experiences and responsive customer support, among other things. This will prove very important in getting people to stick around long enough. And as it turns out, this will go a long way to impact your bottom line and also serve as a powerful boost to your company’s marketing strategy.