Key Components in Building Customer Loyalty
Written by: Don Miller
Posted on January 15, 2008
Filed Under Starting your Online Business
Your home based business success will hinge on many key components, however developing customer loyalty should be near the top of any home based business development plan. It’s easy to talk about developing customer loyalty; actually implementing a plan for customer retention is quite another matter. Its importance should not be excluded from your overall business plan. Here are a few tips to establish a foundation for your home based business success. these principles have served me well for over 30 years. Remember you are establishing a business , a legitimate business. Your reliability, credibility and dedication to your customer’s needs cannot be overlooked. Successful business’s practice it everyday and insist upon it in their employees. Customer loyalty matters.
Reliability
Are you reliable? Do you deliver what you promise? You want to be unique? Be reliable. You make an appointment with someone, you better keep it. Your customer may allow you to miss one, most can accept that. Miss another and they will look elsewhere for an answer. Have you ever been told by a service company, cable company just came to my mind “we will be there at 2 PM” somewhere around the next day you get a call with an apology and an attempt at rescheduling your appointment. How did you feel? Customer Service has become the oxymoron of the 21st century, but you have the ability to change that for your home based business. I will make this really easy for you. Say what you mean, and mean what you say. It is that simple.
Credibility
Your home based business at its core should be tied to credibility. Establishing yourself as a credible resource for you customers begins the moment you decide to start your home based business. I can make an argument that it begins even before that. You will promote products and services to your customers. Are these products credible or are you just trying to sell something? Believe it; your customers will know the difference. I try very hard not to advertise or put advertisers on my site products or services I don’t use or wouldn’t use myself. That sometimes costs me money. I have turned down advertisers that don’t align with my philosophy or purpose. I am trying to protect my credibility. You should too.
Safety
Safety? Yes providing your customer a safe haven when they visit your site is paramount to your home based business success. Does your site visitor feel threatened when they arrive for the first time? If so you can be sure they won’t be back. You should be looking to create an atmosphere of security and stability for your site visitor. I visit home based business sites everyday. I want to link to those sites. If you are like me it takes about 10 seconds for me to decide if I am going to stay. The look and feel of your site is important. I want to feel safe about being there, if not, it is the back button as quick as I can get my cursor there.
Follow Up
Do you want the one time buyer or do you want repeat business? I have sold Site Build it, Blue Host Hosting, and have recommended many other products to my customers. I follow up with every one of them after the sale. I want to make sure they are satisfied with their purchase and determine how else I can help them in the future. I may or may not sell another product to them. That is not my purpose in the communication. I want them to think of my home based business first when their needs inevitably occur again. I am telling you this just isn’t prevalent in today’s fast paced, get rich quick culture. It now is make money and move on. No why have I done that? I have provided a reliable resource for them. I have suggested credible products and service, in turn establishing my own credibility. They tell a friend and their friend tells a friend. Your customer, turned regular customer, is now you advocate. Soon your home based business is on its way to becoming viral. I have provided a safe haven for them to glean information about those products and services. I communicate before and after the sale and assure them I have a personal interest in their satisfaction. Seems rather simple doesn’t it? Then why doesn’t everyone do it? You tell me, please.
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Tags:business, home based business, hosting, marketing, sbi, site build it
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8 Responses to “Key Components in Building Customer Loyalty”
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Key Components in Building Customer Loyalty…
What do you do to retain your customer base.Do you care? of course you do , but customer service has become the oxymoron of the 21st century. All anyone seems to care about is get rich quick and get out. Real business doesn’t have to be a quickie and …
Great article. I also went through your about page and really enjoyed your story.
As a bluehost affiliate how do you follow up with people who buy hosting? Does the bluehost affiliate program tell you exactly who bought hosting? Just curious.
Also, your section on credibility really stuck with me. I had a couple products I linked on my blog as affiliates when I was first testing affiliate marketing, but now would like to take them down (I never actually used the products). I agree with your ideas on credibility that you shouldn’t advertise or sell anything that you don’t use or wouldn’t use yourself.
Colby , generally speaking I don’t get lots of people just clicking and I have usually established some sort of a relationships before hand, if they do just click and buy they usually will be back with questions, I only need one email , one question and we have a start
I agree with you Customer service has become increasingly important.
[…] treated as well as I have been with them. Their customer service techs are really helpful and have restored a measure of my faith in the customer service process. Perhaps when this is over I will review the above company in Blogger Unleashed style, but by that […]
Hi Don, very much touched on the concept of follow up, I used to try MLM marketing before, and this is one thing that I often forgot to do.
The sales is not finished after we are delivering the product, or when we’re receiving the money. Follow up is necessary, to show our extended support for them, and it will show our confidence in the product, as we dare to do follow-up.
THanks for sharing,
Robert
I appreciate your statement about your business becoming viral by word of mouth, offline. I think too many people have forgotten the basic truth that business still happens off the internet and a personal interest in your customer is always welcome. One of the best examples of customer service follow up I have experienced came from my mortgage broker. I bought my house 3 years ago and I still get mailings from her. The last time postage increased she sent me a card with 10 2-cent stamps in it. Didn’t have anything to do with her business, but had everything to do with my needs at the time. This is the kind of follow up system I help my clients set up - one that focuses on service rather than sales.
[…] really wonder what has become of our 21st century, because just about everywhere I go these days, customer service isn’t existent […]