The digital marketing profession is an impressive innovation for achieving customer loyalty. Its far-reaching effects can easily traverse the globe and procure loyalty among customers without the need for traditional methods like billboards, posters, flyers, and even word of mouth. So how do you achieve customer loyalty in the digital age?
You can achieve customer loyalty in the digital age by understanding the concepts of real & perceived value, maintaining core values & added value, understanding customer loyalties, and personalizing customer experiences with innovative technologies like VR, AR, Virtual Tours, and the Metaverse.
Customer loyalty is ultimately about trust, and there are several strategies you can employ to achieve customer satisfaction. We’ll cover desirable core and added values to your product, different reasons why customers might become loyal, and the tools necessary to achieve and maintain customer loyalty.
How Do You Earn Customer Loyalty In The Digital Age?
While not all customers are the same, their desire to satisfy a particular need is a universal experience regarding technology and digitalization.
Factors such as real and perceived value for your product, the core values you represent, and the added value that make your product appealing are essential to grabbing and maintaining customer loyalty.
Customer loyalty comes in different forms, so we’ll cover why customers become loyal to your product or service.
The Importance Of Real And Perceived Value
Actual value relates to the cost of your product and the profit it can produce. Perceived value relates to how much customers will pay for your product.
Actual Value
When marketing and selling products, the actual and perceived value of your products can be very different.
The actual value of your product or service refers to the cost of that product or service to sell it for a profit. If you were to manufacture a product and leave it blank without a brand name or assurance that it carries a mark of quality, the actual value would equate to how much people will pay for it in the open market.
The sum of the actual value will derive from the number that customers place on it while disregarding the expectations of the customer and seller.
Perceived Value
Perceived value refers to how much the customer believes the product is worth. The final number comes from the opinions market as a whole and the benefits or level of convenience the customer believes they will receive when they purchase your product.
If customers are discerning and even excited about the product, it is possible to sell it for much more than its manufacturing cost. A product that garners disdain because of specific adverse side effects or destructive tendencies can dip below the actual value and cost of production.
Branding is a significant value proposition when it comes to customer satisfaction. They garner customer loyalty through perceived value by letting customers know they can expect the same level of excellent quality from their purchase as they can from all other previous purchases.
It’s for this reason that brands like Kelly Wearstler, TOV furniture, and Michael Dawkins Home can continue to sell their products for thousands of dollars and have returning customers. Technology serves to bolster this effect and expand their grasp when it comes to digitalization.
It transformed them into a globally reputable company, plus they sealed the deal by imprinting their logo on their products as quality assurance and advertising.
It’s common for customers to buy products to beat the competition and own the most beautiful, exotic, or expensive furniture collection. It spikes their social status and gives them bragging rights within their social spheres of influence. When customers have a high perceived value of furniture or interior design goods, and their social circle knows it, they naturally get to host all the dinner parties.
Economist Adam Smith proved this when he showed that customers purchase luxury goods for their aesthetic and practical pleasures, but largely also because they bolster their social status. You can see such an example with weddings when money is not a factor, and people spend a fortune on decorations to have the perfect wedding day.
Founding father of the school institutional economics, Thorstein Veblen, wrote The Theory of the Leisure Class, which discusses the concept of conspicuous consumption. It explains consumer practices of buying and utilizing high-quality goods in significant quantities despite their practical use or price tags.
Achieve Customer Loyalty With Core Values And Added Values
Core values and added values relay your intentions as a business and make customers more excited to receive your product.
When it’s time to communicate your product to a customer or client, it’s vital to demonstrate the standards you set for yourself. By adhering to the core values that give your company meaning, your company will be happier and more productive, which means customers and clients will be pleased because they come to expect a quality product.
What might be a core value for one company may not necessarily be the same for another. There are usually several ways to be successful; some take longer, while others are much shorter. Here are some great core values to aspire to and help establish a solid foundation for digitalization:
- Digitalization & technology create data that tells a story of success – Analyzing can reveal many strengths and weaknesses of your product, and it will ultimately determine the success of your product.
- Seek first your customers and their needs, and the sales will follow – While a business exists to make a profit, how will you make your product desirable when you don’t know what the customer wants?
- Understand the why, and it will clarify the what – When you can grasp the reasons behind your decisions (thanks to data), it will make it much easier to establish what you should do next to help your product expand.
- Nurture a positive team – When everyone is on the same page, they know what needs to be done to achieve the same greatness.
Added value is when you add features to your product that enhance its utility during the production stages. The changes are potent enough to sway customers into choosing your product over the competition. Coupled with quality service and attention to detail, it will quickly build up your brand.
Adding features that make your product more convenient, easier to update, and an open support line will significantly improve its perceived value for the customer.
If you own a furniture business, consider including free cushion cases, cleaning tools for furniture that customers desire, or discounts on future purchases or repairs. It will enhance the customer experience and greatly improve customer satisfaction because they will believe you know what they want.
Customer Loyalty In Personalization, Experience & Innovation
An essential part of achieving customer loyalty is personalizing their experience with innovative ideas and offering them something that they want (or didn’t know that they needed). You can leverage customer experience as a loyalty tool when you take the proper steps.
Innovative Reward Programs Create A Personalized Experience
Too many companies need a more balanced understanding of innovation, particularly regarding rewarding programs.
They treat them as quick, temporary solutions to entice new or existing customers to try their product. These methods seek to catch a customer on a bad day, hoping they will buy a product due to a lapse in judgment or during a weak moment. This method is hit-and-miss and does nothing to build a relationship of loyalty with the customer. It procures only a tiny percentage of the product’s value.
If you want loyal customers, your design philosophy must include loyalty. A well-designed reward program can speed up the time it takes new customers to become loyal to your product. You must employ methods to return value to customers proportional to the value that their loyalty adds to your business.
It would be ideal to have a reward system that frequently updates your customers on new deals, discounts, and special sales to motivate them to earn rewards.
Remember, your most loyal customers make up the largest percentage of your sales figures. It pays to invest in loyalty because these customers become less costly to serve because they grow accustomed to your furniture brand. With enough time, your investments grow your business as they bring new customers and buy more at premium prices.
How Do You Use Innovation To Enhance Customer Experience?
Mcdonald’s introduced a solid reward program where customers receive discounts and membership-only deals on their favorite meals, and Mcdonald’s increases their sales by 10 percent. Office Depot offers their customers 2 percent cash back on all their furniture purchases, among other things.
Small neighborhood businesses and merchants know how to employ a successful reward program well. They make it their business to know their best customers personally and provide them with personalized services unavailable to other customers. The truth is some customers are more profitable because they equate for a large part of your revenue stream.
They might notify them when rare and valuable merchandise arrives so they get the first pick or offer them complimentary food and beverages. They understand that adding value to customers who add value to your business will produce loyal customers. These same customers will become your most valuable customers in the future.
Credit card and Insurance companies often employ this tactic by offering lower interest rates and insurance premiums to loyal customers or those without a history of prior accidents. They may also receive discounts on specific insurance policies after staying with a company for a set time.
Companies that grow exponentially larger lose their ability to pinpoint their most valuable customers, and customer service employees, together with high sales numbers, can complicate it further. These large companies treat new and long-term customers equally and, in doing so, provide a lackluster service or product to all customers.
It results in big companies wasting resources on trying to please customers that spend less while disappointing loyal customers that spend a lot. Given enough time, loyal customers who expect a higher quality service will look elsewhere for a more attractive option, and customers who pay less will remain and reduce the overall revenue of your business.
Customer Loyalties May Exist For Different Reasons
Customers might become loyal due to low prices, convenience, free stuff, or a high-quality offer.
Customer loyalty may look different for customers, depending on the type of convenience they receive from your product. While a customer might swear loyalty for various reasons, they all indicate a continuously evolving and innovative emotional interaction between you and your customer.
The result manifests in how much more willing customers are to engage with your product or service than your competitors. Here are value propositions on how to personalize the experience of your customers for different types of customer satisfaction:
- Loyalty From Social Status – An increase in social status is majorly appealing to many buyers. The idiom keeping up with the Joneses exists because the desire to be at the top of the social ladder can be fierce. Implementing this attribute into your product will become a decisive contributing factor toward customer satisfaction.
- Loyalty From Quality – The trusted and true method for building customer loyalty, is having a great product. It works and lasts as you promised and doesn’t come with nasty surprises. Most customers do not demand a lot; all they wish for is a product capable of delivering a promised service to fulfill their desire or rectify a problem.
- Loyalty From A Positive Purchasing Experience – Did you ever buy a product or service that required you to crawl through too many hoops and maybe over broken glass? There’s a good chance you did not return a second time. They care little for price, focusing mainly on convenience.
Customers can be loyal because of how convenient it is to use and get ahold of your product. If you had the choice between a good product that required you to sift through five or six web pages to purchase, as opposed to an average product that was available with a single click, you could opt for the average product.
Factors like transport, packaging, customer service, and money-back guarantees are essential to customers and create a positive purchasing experience.
- Loyalty From A Low Price Tag – Price-sensitive customers will shop for the most affordable price range for their desired product. They will likely look to others to fulfill their needs if they find a cheaper alternative. When your price becomes the best value for money, they will return once more.
Maintaining such a customer is simple, but shifting your prices too much could cost you in the long run.
- Loyalty Because Of Freebies – It is possible to grab customers’ attention with your product’s additional features rather than the product itself. It may be that a purchase will grant them free Wifi, an upgraded service, or a discount on something else that is more desirable to them.
You may experience unpredictable buying patterns, meaning they do not make up the central portion of your revenue.
- Loyalty For A Quality Package – When you combine all the above services that appeal to customers, you will gain true loyalists who keep returning because their experience is always positive. They enjoy recommending your product to colleagues, friends, and family and will give it a five-star review.
Which Technologies Can Improve Perceived Value?
Augmented Reality (AR), Influencers on social media, Virtual Reality (VR), High price tags, Metaverse, and Virtual Tours are excellent technologies for customer loyalty and satisfaction.
Augmented Reality
Augmented reality is a brilliant sales strategy that allows you to give your customers the experience of trying your product before purchasing it. It’s a convenient process that requires only a mobile phone; in return, your customers will receive a realistic and practical shopping experience.
With this technology, your customers can test-drive one of the cars on your showroom floor before purchasing.
Social Media Influencers On Youtube, Twitch, or Twitter
More often than not, people will trust the convincing word of someone they know and trust over the advertisement of a product. Influencers who review products and showcase a plethora of ways in which a customer can benefit from the product are excellent for promoting customer satisfaction and loyalty.
Your favorite Youtuber might make a video about their new furniture set, and go on to explain the excellent quality of the wood, how it enhances the room’s aesthetic, and the excellent service they received upon their purchase. This video will likely significantly impact your desire to receive the same product and service, especially if it’s something you’ve had your eye on for a while.
Virtual Reality
VR marketing mimics a physical experience in a digital world to benefit their curiosity while you get to promote your product and brand.
VR is also an excellent tool for updating your customers on your newest products and offers and keeping them invested from manufacturing to the start of their shelf life. You also gain valuable insight from the feedback provided by the customers.
Ads are notorious for their ability to irritate. Do you watch the entire one-minute ad or skip it as quickly as you can click the skip button? VR experiences present your product in a way that removes the desire to get away, making it a welcoming experience for customers.
Use Price To Determine Product Value
It is possible to create value for a particular product by assigning a high price tag, especially with products where the value is not apparent. The price tag will increase the perceived value the customer carries and allow you to benefit and count it as a higher source of revenue.
It would be the perfect product to assign a high price tag if you wanted to sell a classic furniture set made from the finest cut of Bocote wood. Neither you nor a customer can place a value on such items, so the price tag you assign will determine its value.
Metaverse
The Metaverse gives you the power to create a virtual world to showcase your brand’s features and best qualities. This method stands above traditional methods like videos and images, focusing only on visual appeal. The impactfulness of the world relies solely on the creativity and immersion of your creating the world, so you must input the things you want the customer to experience.
The Metaverse allows customers to access it in the comfort of their homes and view your product by scaling it up or down. Old-school marketing strategies are fiercely competitive, but the Metaverse allows you to customize your advertising to cover all your bases.
Virtual Tour
Virtual Tour allows you to showcase your business, whether a retail store, gym or Airbnb, to win the trust and loyalty of customers who desire your product or service.
It has an impressive reputation for success, with the following statistics:
- Sixty-seven percent of customers prefer viewing virtual tours.
- Of the adult users who conduct research online or want to make essential decisions, 50 percent rely on virtual tours for accuracy.
- Customers 18 – 34 years old with access to a virtual tour are 130 percent more likely to book accommodation.
- Customers can spend up to ten times more money on websites that have virtual tours.
It’s wise to utilize your virtual tours on advertisements, newsletters, social media, and Google My Business.
The Configurator Is The Most Efficient And Versatile Tool
The configurator is the most advanced and efficient tool to manage your product. It utilizes an automated configuration that quickly analyzes and determines a product’s best attributes and features.
It’s easy to set up and allows you to choose several options for products you regularly manufacture and sell. The flexibility works well for straightforward and complex products that may have a few hundred or thousand configurable options.
One of its most appealing features is inputting far less data while greatly improving order accuracy. If your business produces and sells office furniture with a lovely conference room package, a configurator will allow you to create all the necessary components and options for the package.
This layout immensely improves the perceived value for the customer and will simplify the purchasing process. Customers always appreciate customizable options, and they work wonders to enhance sales and help your product reach as many customers as possible.
The configurator is also a great choice when data shows you to adjust an existing product to match specific demands from customers.
You can add and remove features to calculate and direct you on presenting the ideal product according to the customer’s needs. The final product will be a highly configured item sought after by customers.
Configurators are quickly becoming popular, so much so that they earned the name sales configurator due to their proven record of success.
Conclusion
Adhering to core values and adding value to your product will please you and your customers. It’s essential to provide a personalized experience by utilizing advanced technologies like VR, AR, and virtual tours. These bring your customers to you rather than redirect them away from unengaging ads, images, or videos.
