There are plenty of articles online about why you should work towards turning your customers in to brand advocates and using customer service to achieve this but practical advice you can apply to actually do this is like finding pixie dust. This post will look at the different steps, from prospect to advocate, and what you can do (beyond “excellent customer service”) to move your visitors/ customers along the chain.
For the purpose of this article we are going to presume you have a strong product and good customer service already. Without them you are unlikely to get someone past being a “customer”.
What is the loyalty chain/ ladder?
The idea is that people can be proactively moved through a series of stages based around loyalty to your brand/ product, from prospect through to a brand advocate.
- Prospect: Not yet purchased anything from you
- Customer: Made a single purchase
- Client: Made repeat purchases
- Loyal customer: They only buy from you and do not use any of your competitors
- Advocate: They actively recommend other people to use your product/ service
Terms used
Where we use the term ‘product’ this applies to tangible products (e.g. selling books), paid services (e.g. marketing consultancy) and free resources (e.g. a blog) where applicable.
Stage 1: Prospect to customer
- Analysing your website’s performance
- Conversion optimisation (e.g. http://www.google.com/websiteoptimizer)
- Analytics metrics (Bounce rate, Ecommerce source data etc)
- Promotions
- Price (e.g. x% off)
- Product bundles (e.g. Buy X and get Y free)
- X days free
- Product trials/ money back guarantee
- Easy to transfer in from other supplier or offer to do the transfer for them
- Case studies
- Links to sign up to your marcomms e.g. alerts, newsletter, RSS, twitter etc
- “Contact us” with very quick response rates (Email, Phone, Online forms etc)
Stage 2: Customer to Client
- Product meets expectations (Product works and you didn’t over sell at the first stage)
- Email marketing
- Introduction pack (e.g. Welcome to XYZ, account details etc)
- Customer newsletter
- Monthly offer
- User guides to make sure they know how to use the product
- Extensive online support centre for common questions/ issues
- Cross-selling and up-selling of your other products
- Identify churn patterns and target in advance (e.g. If you see high churn in month 4, target customers in month 2 or 3 to find out if they need any help with the product)
- Renewal incentives at the end of the contract
Stage 3: Client to loyal customer
- Personal interaction
- Personalised offers
- Direct Twitter replies
- Internal feedback mechanism (and replies to their comments)
- Product development & new features added continuously (extra bonus if based on feedback point above)
- Exclusive deals for existing customers
- Customer loyalty programs
- Reward points based on what they buy
- Length of time rewards e.g. stay with us for 2 years and get X, 3 years get Y etc
- Develop a community for your customers
- Forum
- Market place
- Their own blogs hosted with you
- Free resources they can’t find elsewhere
- Research
- Guides
- Blog
- Tools
- Use them as a case study
- Ongoing customer satisfaction surveys with feedback implemented
Stage 4: Loyal customer to advocate
One you have turned your prospect in to an advocate you need to help them spread the word. These points are based around how to help your advocates tell other people about your products
- Refer a friend program with mechanism for them to send referral invites
- Badges for them to put on their website
- “Partner with XYZ”
- “XYZ supplier”
- “Hosted with XYZ”
- “Part of the XYZ network”
- Access to marketing material for them to use, display or pass on
- Your brochure (PDF or printed)
- Your logo in different sizes and formats
- Stickers, mugs, pens etc
- Clothing (e.g. T-shirt)
Do you have any tactics you emply to turn your customers in to loyal customers and empower them to become brand advocates, or have we missed something blindingly obvious? If so and you’d like to share it with us leave a comment below.
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Hi Matthew,
There’s certainly a lot to think about in the moving along process and some of it I have already thought of, but as a sole trader with a full time day job as well, I would be risking spreading myself a little too thin if I followed your list there so I have to move my customers from prospect to advocate immediately.
It’s not all that hard really. Personal interaction which you have mentioned in your list is the clincher. Blogs, forums and special offers are all great things, but in the faceless ecommerce arena what people really appreciate is the personally sent emails that say thanks for being a customer and making a purchase. It’s so much nicer when you’re on the receiving end than simply getting some automated response.
A follow-up phone call 3 – 4 weeks after their first purchase just to check they’re happy with everything goes a long way to securing that customers trust. There’s three key questions to ask on the phone; Is the product meeting your expectations? Did you find the online transaction process easy to follow? Are you happy with the over all service you have received from us? It just gives your customer a sense that you’ll look after their needs. Always be polite but don’t try to sound too formal either. If you can strike up a conversation all the better as you can slip in the odd little question to get an idea of their level of experience and also they will feel as if they’re getting to know you personally too and they will be confident that they are dealing with a friendly company who is actually interested in looking after them. Always tell a customer how nice it was talking to them and always invite them to contact you any time if they ever have a problem with your service. Whatever you do, DON’T try to sell them any extra services during the phone call otherwise you blow everything and they see you as just another company out to get as much money from them as possible.
Well that’s one of my commercially sensitive secrets out of the bag, but seriously, your customers will love you for that one to one interaction if you do it properly.
best wishes
Eddie
Eddie
Thanks for the great tips, really useful. Like you say, the ‘chain’ does not have to be a funnel that people follow step by step, a customer can enter at any stage and/or skip one or two or even instantly become an advocate if your product/ service/ branding is strong enough.
Cheers
Matt
Nice article