To start with, I'm quite sure each and everyone of us know that competition in business is inevitable. It is something that cannot be avoided, instead what is required of us is to look for ways to outlive that competition. Going by the high level of competitiveness in business that looks extremely violent or severe, busines organizations and companies should make sure they focus on arousing interest from new customers, as well as make use of rewards and incentives to retain existing customers and bring out the best from them, which will serve a means of attraction to even more and more and more customers.
The fundamental characteristics that determine quite a good number of indutries is their strive towards making sure that a customer that have been captured is fully focused in their activities to that industry. I did talk about customer loyalty some days ago in a post, and I want you to take note that customer loyalty scheme is a perfect example of using information to enhance customer bonding and improve competitiveness. These customer loyalty schemes have been known to be an important feature of marketing programs, and Air miles is the most recent example of that. The rate at which the number and type of companies that offer customer loyalty programs increases is on the high side. These firms include credit card companies, telephone operators such as MCI in the United State of America that open the way for the popular friends and family package and bookstores, such as WH Smith that possess a refined database of lots of clients and are located in Britain.
This particular measure used by MCI brought a 4 percent rise to their market share despite the extremely violent and severe competition that they went through. The most interesting fact about the measure taken by MCI is that the amount spent on advertisement is very moderate in size, which is only 5 percent of the amount spent on advertisement by the market leader, AT&T. The quality at which loyalty programs is being inventive is something unexpected by many. The reason being that the brand values of the firms and an indication of potential or imminent danger that competitors face as a result have been brought into limelight. A good example is the introduction of a sagacious loyalty scheme for customer bonding driven towards the reduction of the time it takes to capture new clients into the system by Virgin Atlantic. Those that took part in the loyalty schemes of competitors were offered a companion ticket that does not require to be paid for by Virgin Atlantic via any Airways frequent flyer in Britain who have amass 10,000 miles. This have really gone a long way to promote the reputation of the Vigin brand making reference to its flexibility and dynamism. As a business owner, there are some crucial things you need to put into practice to ensure efficient and effective customer bonding for you to enjoy maximum benefits from it. Those points are stated below.
Customer loyalty schemes is an initiative that must be created, so as to spur on and strongly recommend repeat business and establish a brand image that is positive among your customer base. The achievement of this will make your customers have complete trust in you and the organisation at large.
When you are busy creating a loyalty scheme, do not forget to have your attention concentrated on your competitors. Try to know what your competitors are offering and think deeply and cleverly about what you can offer that will be better and even suite the customers even more. Doing this and taking it into consideration in your product or service delivery will leave the customers no choice than to keep patronizing you.
Creativity is very important in all that we do. For instance, if am not creative with what am writing, it will most likely be boring and hard for you reading this because it doesn't interest you. This is the main reason there is need for creativity to be implemented when conducting loyalty programs and other methods of customer bonding. You must take maximaum advantage of this area because there are lots of innovation possibilities attached to it.
You can also go extra miles to ask customer-facing employees of their opinion on how best customer loyalty can be improved. This is mainly because; most times, they are the ones in the best position to maintain a close and friendly relationship with the customers, and they tend to know what the customers want and what they need.
REFERENCE
- Great business ideas from leading companies around the world by Jeremi Kourdi.
Also published on my whaleshares