Customer loyalty is and always has been an abstract term.
Loyal customers could be the ones that frequent your business despite
the presence of reasons to do otherwise, pay your high prices despite
the cheaper alternatives, are less volatile when faced with your
shortcomings, and are eager to spread your message despite the absence
of personal gain. Whichever formula fits your business, if you can
generate meaningful loyalty in a significant portion of your customers,
your business will enjoy better results. So the question is, “What can
you do to turn your customers into better customers?”
As someone who runs marketing at a startup focused on helping businesses
build first-class loyalty programs, I know that those interpersonal
relationships you establish can often be the key differentiator between
success and failure. With that in mind, here are five strategies to
create and sustain extreme loyalty with your customers.
Offer Your Customers Value
While this may not be a novel strategy, it simply must be included in every list about loyalty. No exceptions.

If you do not offer concise and consistent value to your customers,
they will never be loyal to you. It’s as simple as that. The value could
be product and service related, or it could be just a great feeling
customers receive when interacting with your brand. If you wake up in
the middle of the night and can't immediately explain in one sentence
what unique value your business offers its customers, don't bother
getting out of bed in the morning.
Use The Element Of Surprise
Let's set aside the economies of scale for just one minute.
This week, try getting intimate with 20 of your customers. Learn
about their routine at your business and find out about all the small
ways you can make their experience a little bit more delightful. Armed
with this knowledge, all that's left to do is systematically
over-deliver on what your customers expect, adding an exciting element
of surprise to their experiences. Going the extra mile will resonate
with your customers, proving that the personal investment they’ve made
in your business gets acknowledged--and rewarded!
Be Personal In Scale
Now that you know how to get intimate with customers, let's try to scale
it up. Which points of interaction do you have with them that could be
made more personal, more human?
Remember that while you offer products or services to a multitude of
people, your customers are having unique, individual experiences and
will judge you by it. "It's OK that this business didn't treat me like a
real person. It has a lot of other customers to serve,"
said no customer ever.
What if you and your staff came in an hour early and wrote a thousand
handwritten thank-you notes to your customers? That’s a tangible
solution that could have long-lasting effects on your loyal customer
base.
Data=Knowledge
You know what's better than getting a good offer? Getting the right offer at the right time.
There are many ways in which you communicate with your customers: in
person, through email, online, on mobile. Are you keeping track of who's
getting which offer? Do you know what you are doing right when an offer
is redeemed or doing wrong when it is ignored?
Use simple data to clump your customers into groups, and make sure
you're tailoring your communication to each group according to what
you've learned about their preferences. Groups can be based on timing
(e.g. lunch crowd vs. dinner crowd), shopping habits,
demographics—practically any grouping that gives you ways you can
diversify and tweak your messaging. Remember: you're looking for impact,
not eyeballs.
Go Mobile Already
Stop resisting the transition to mobile. Find a way to live on your
customers' phones. They might download your app if it makes sense—it
usually doesn't—or they'll get to see you on aggregator or UGC apps.

As long as you exist where they're looking, you'll be in good shape.
Now start working on improving your mobile content. Are you making sure
your customers always choose you? Are you making it easy for them to
stumble upon you when it counts? Use your mobile presence to remind your
customers of who you are and what made them like you in the first
place.
Executing on these five strategies will put you on the fast track to
cultivating a loyalty infrastructure that’s built to last. Instead of
turning your head to the latest and greatest, keep your focus on
marketing solutions that are proven to be effective. Never doubt the
efficacy of interpersonal relationships; keep that top of mind, and
you’ll be surprised how quickly you can grow your loyal customer base.