Providing a Positive Customer Experience Online to Promote Loyalty

As the adage goes, keeping a current customer is easier than acquiring a new one.

Depending on your industry, customer satisfaction and its correlation to your bottom line vary a bit. However, every company relies on customer satisfaction, to some degree.

Ways the customer experience affects you:

• A positive experience can prompt referral business.
• A positive experience can promote repeat business.
• A solid reputation is good for any company, of any size, in any industry.

Conversely:

• A negative experience causes cancellations and escalations.
• A negative experience halts the repeat and referral business potential stemming from that source.
• A negative reputation ramps up quickly and is difficult to overcome.

So, clearly, keeping customers satisfied and providing superior service is paramount to maintaining your company’s image of integrity of and fully tapping into repeat and referral business. Creating this environment ensures your customer loyalty.

Once you recognize that this caliber of service promotes loyalty, how can you use your website and online activities to complement this endeavor?

Using Your Website to Retain Customers and Promote Loyalty

Your website can be a great tool for increasing customer satisfaction and earning their loyalty. This is a resource that is often overlooked because online tasks seem too difficult, because navigating the Internet seems overwhelming, or a host of other reasons, but it would be a mistake to neglect capitalizing on this source of service.

Your site can provide:

• Availability and Access: Customers have instant access to information about you or about their accounts, can take advantage of around-the-clock ordering, and much more.
• Communication: When you can’t be present, you can still have a presence.
• Marketing: Use your site to proactively market to a broad audience.

Looking at each of these aspects in detail may give you some ideas about how you currently use your site (or how you might use one if you had one), or perhaps offer new ideas that you haven’t yet considered.

Availability and Safe, Easy Access to YOU

Being available to your customers in today’s market and technological arenas is no longer a perk – it is vital. If you are a retailer, customers expect to be able to place orders 24/7; directing them to your shop is no longer viable in most markets. If your company is more consultative, your site can provide resources to help them become knowledgeable about your business. For example, a home inspection company can offer articles about what to expect, post rates, and other types of guidance. These informational pieces can help your customers feel confident about the expertise of your company and about the products or services you provide.

Another issue, particularly if you sell products or take payments online, is security. Obtaining the right SSL Certificate and implementing proper security for your transactions is vital to encouraging your customers to complete online purchases through your site.

Communication: Use the Content on Your Site

The text on your site can facilitate a positive customer experience and promote loyalty in black and white. Tell your customer outright who you are and what you do. Using the services of a professional Web designer with access to professional copywriters can be invaluable in relaying the messages you want to convey.

Some ideas for the basic layout of your site:

• Include the basics: a detailed and welcoming home page, a user-friendly contact page, detailed products and services pages.
• Offer a company history or an “About Us” page.
• Make sure the navigation is easy to use and that the format is easy to read.
• Consider additional pages, such as “Testimonials.”

Each page of your site should be informative and pertinent to your goals. Implementing an Optimization campaign can further this end by helping you gain footing in the organic listings online, helping more customers find you and opening the opportunity for even more positive customer experiences.

More than just telling visitors about yourself, another key element is speaking to your target customer. The text can offer solutions for common customer issues that are provided by your company or provide information about aspects of your industry. Optimized articles added to your site can offer a host of benefits for your company that will improve the customer experience:

• Adding pertinent information helps the spiders crawling the Web recognize your site as credible and therefore more customers will find you
• More information to the customers will help them feel comfortable with your company

Marketing Activities with Your Site: Reach Out to Your Customers

Having a trusted website offers the opportunity to branch out into many areas of marketing that may remain untapped, such as email alerts and company newsletters posted on the site or emailed. Keeping in touch with current or past customers further solidifies your commitment to repeat business and referrals.

Another recent idea that is fast becoming widespread is adding a blog to your website. This allows customers or potential customers to ask questions, make comments, and generally interact with you. This personal connection fosters another layer of loyalty. It also allows you to post information about recent company activities or address any topic that you want to associate with your company.

Conclusion

The ideas identified here are a high-level overview of the different ways you can work with your website to turn it into a machine that promotes customer loyalty and grows your business. The possibilities are endless.