It is easy to forget that repeat customers are not necessarily loyal customers. It’s a common mistake that can be avoided, – taking customer loyalty for granted.
Store owners tend to expend too much effort in gaining new customers, rather than retaining those they already have. However, the goal should not be to just “retain customers” but rather build loyalty.
Don’t get me wrong, it is a huge win, converting a visitor into a customer, but this is the last step of a trust building exercise (the focus of a conversion funnel) and only the vital first step of the loyalty building exercise.
Going Beyond Just Customer Retention
The point of this article is to look beyond just customer retention and ask the question of how to convert them from being repeat customers into brand advocates, – building loyalty all the while. To achieve this its necessary to build upon the trust already won through the completion of the conversion funnel to build a progressive loyalty program. In order to do this you must be able to measure loyalty and have a strategy to increase loyalty.
What we are talking about here is building a loyalty funnel.
A loyalty funnel is needed because repeat customer may well abandon you for a great offer on another website. The goal of a loyalty funnel is to build loyalty to your brand which counteracts the “better deal effect” elsewhere.
Conversion funnels are insufficient because although they do build trust and loyalty conversion funnels end with the purchase and do not consider the entire lifecyle of the customer over months, years and decades whereas a loyalty funnel does.
Just as with a conversion funnel, loyalty can be broken down into different stages which are defined by microconversions, tests if you will, within a loyalty funnel. A test passed would trigger the next level or stage in the funnel, with content and offers specific to each level.
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How to Measure Loyalty
There is a set of KPIs (Customer Sentiment, Customer Satisfaction and Customer Effort Score) that can be measured that can provide an indication of loyalty, or alternatively automated via an app or plugin in your Shopify or Woocommerce store called Conversific, their fantastic feature identifies your loyal customers in Shopify or Woocommerce, and designates them a loyalty ranking.
Additionally, or alternatively and certainly, – more directly you can just ask your customers.
Again this is possible through a tool with a survey/feedback feature such as OptiMonk. You can ask a series of multiple-choice questions.
Each question when answered indicates a specific level of loyalty, this would obviously correspond with a stage within the “loyalty funnel”, triggering the segmentation of the individual based upon their answer.
Loyalty based questions.
The benefit of using OptiMonk, which is a conversion rate optimization tool, is that each question can be tested and refined through AB testing and the winning variation can be automatically deployed. In the case of Loyalty a three or four stage question multiple choice question series is the solution. Be sure to test several variations taking into consideration your business model. You might want to separate each question into its own popup to AB each question individually and trigger the next based on the completion of the first.
Research has already been done on developing questions to determine level of loyalty so we have a great place to start and develop it further.
The following multiple-choice question series is a feedback survey that can be created using a multi-step popup overlay feedback form using OptiMonk. Using Advanced targeting it can be used to target any consumer group provided the data is available in which to differentiate them. Custom fields can be used for this purpose.
How to Determine Loyalty Funnel Stage.
The three step Multiple Choice Question Survey.
Multi-Step Popup – Part 1: Affective Loyalty Scale
Which of this statements most reflects your opinion about our brand.
- I bought this brand because I really like it
- I am pleased to buy this brand instead of other brands
- I like this cosmetics brand more than other brands
- I feel more attached to this brand than to other brands
- I am more interested in this brand than other brands.
While many of these answers sound similar, in actual effect this represents a scale of loyalty, – tried and tested.
Part 2: Conative Loyalty Scale (intention)
- I intend to buy this brand in the future, too
- I intend to buy other products from this brand
Part 3: Action Loyalty Scale
- I recommend this brand to those who ask my advice
- I say positive things about this brand to other persons
- I consider this company my first choice when I want to buy cosmetic products
In addition to this 3 part series of questions listed above there is a 4th set of questions, however the results of this “Cognitive Loyalty” scale are inconclusive on tests made thus far. However, by AB testing you might very well find the 4th group of questions is relevant to your business and products (details are in the download below).
Define questions based upon your business model and uses these multiple choice answers to segment customers for further loyalty engagement. Your task is to then create the loyalty funnel, giving the customer progressively. Develop ways of increasing loyalty according to their level of loyalty as defined by their answers, some ideas for which are at the end of this article.
How to Increase Brand Loyalty.
- Elicit questions about improving customer service.
- Reward customers with product/service discounts.
- If existing customers don’t buy a specific product (after adding it to their shopping cart) ask them why (OptiMonk’s feedback popup)
- Ask questions about products purchased (followup email) – reviews.
- Create a facebook community group and invite existing customers – provide VIP discounts.
- Consider a real life discount card. Perhaps deliver it on their birthday.
- Adopt an affiliate program and reward referred sales.
Conclusion
OptiMonk provides all the features necessary to test, develop and deploy a loyalty funnel. Map the adapted multiple-choice questions above and use the supplied answers to segment users into stages within your loyalty funnel. One option here is to have the thankyou page trigger this short feedback questionnaire feedback popup. Perhaps supply a reward for completion, for example a free spin on OptiMonk’s Wheel of fortune, here you can add discounts codes of varying amounts in order to gamify the experience and incentivize further purchases.
We would love to hear about what you find works with your loyalty building efforts.
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