Although we now have at our fingertips a whole range of electronic gadgets to capture and keep customers, from online services (internet and e-mail) to smartphones, iPods, iPads, tablets, etc., growing customer loyalty remains a     challenge.  Regardless, each stage of the customer lifecycle (i.e. suspect, prospect, first time customer, repeat customer, client, advocate) presents unique possibilities to increase customer loyalty base. The following are some best practices for each of the six stages of customer loyalty.

1. Attract  your be st suspects (potential clients)…

Research shows that nowadays especially because of social media, customer relies heavily on information from peers, rather than traditional media sources or from the brand or seller, itself. This means that in order to attract quality suspects, you, as the business owner, must find ways to spread positive word-of-mouth through existing customers and supporters and turn them into advocates or evangelists of your products.  Three key elements drive this process: simple ideas, word-of-mouth friendliness, and tools that facilitate online customer conversations such as social media networks like Facebook, Twitter, etc.
2. Convert your prospects…
A key challenge facing any business owner is how to find high-value prospects and nurture them into customers. Lowering sales costs and increasing closing rates are paramount to winning the loyalty game. However, to weed out high-potential prospects from so-so suspects, it is critical that a company’s online search campaign be as spot-on as possible in addressing three areas: who to target, how to position products and services, and how to effectively qualify prospects.  An excellent way is to do landing pages.  There are some helpful sites that facilitate the creation of landing pages.  One of them is unbounce.com – a landing page platform.
3. Perform well for first-time customers…
Loyalty research has consistently confirmed the importance of a seller’s accuracy, reliability and responsiveness in transacting with first time customers.  This is important because first time customers are “trying” out a new product and their perception of the value they receive from  their first purchase will drive their repeat purchase decisions.  And with the ubiquitousness of social media, customer feedback ( be it positive and/or negative) is a sure way to get the message out there instantly.   However, as much as possible, you would not want negative feedback/problems to be ahead of you.  The payoffs for damage control can be too high.
4. Anchor your repeat customers…
Repeat customers expect to be known and their preferences remembered. Truly empowering the front line with this capability is an often arduous, on-going challenge in many businesses.  So digital social loyalty could serve as a very helpful and advantageous tool to create a “wow” customer experience and make repeat customers happy and loyal.
5. Maximise your existing clients…
Clients are buyers who feel a real commitment to buy from you and proves it by buying every product or service of yours they can reasonably use. If a customer is buying something from a competitor that they could be buying from you, consider that buyer a repeat customer rather than a client. So how can you consistently earn maximum share of wallet and turn a repeat customer into a client? One way is to continually educate your clients about your full breadth of products and services and convert them into your evangelists.  That is one of the most effective strategies of a successful digital social loyalty program.
6. Make good use of your advocates/evangelists…
There’s an important difference between a client and an advocate.  In simple terms, advocates do more than simply buy from you. Advocates are engaged customers who demonstrate their vendor loyalty through such activities as spreading positive word-of- mouth, recruiting new potential clients/customers and helping their vendors improve. So, how can a business build stronger advocacy today? One very effective way is to create a secure environment in which customers can be listened to and engaged over a finite period of time. And by far, the digital social loyalty program is the best and most cost effective strategy and tool to listen, engage, and give  your customers a very satisfying and WOW experience.