Every company has a diversity of clients that are classified by their level of loyalty: loyal clients, shared clients, occasional clients, discount clients, and former clients. The importance of this lies in the fact that 65% of a company's income comes from loyal customers, those who buy a brand exclusively, according to an article in Harvard Business Review.
Additionally, loyal customers are less influenced by the offer of the competition, the first to buy new products, to pay the list price, to buy complementary products, and best of all, to be great ambassadors and advocates for the brand.. If we add to this social networks, a brand with a high level of loyalty will require much less in its advertising budget, as is the case with Zara, Bershka and Pull & Bear, among others, without forgetting that consumers give more credibility to personal references than to paid communication. In short, loyal customers generate high profit margins. Likewise, they are a reliable source of information to identify the strengths of the company and discover new ways to surprise them and continue to consolidate their loyalty.
If this is so, the question that every marketing manager should ask is the following: What percentage of my client base corresponds to each level of loyalty described? An honest and precise answer will indicate the level of competitiveness and stability of the company to generate future profits and survive inclement weather.
Remember that the purpose of marketing is the creation and retention of customers in a profitable way in the long term. Any strategy that seeks to improve its profitability only to meet the demands of shareholders in a fiscal year, without considering its effects in the future, is like wanting to improve the health of a patient in pain, solely through painkillers, temporarily covering the symptoms.
The loyalty of a customer is strongly associated with their level of satisfaction, from the first purchase; as the saying goes, “there is never a second chance to make a good first impression”. At the same time, satisfaction is strongly linked to the expectations that the customer has about a product. When a brand exceeds the expectations of its customer, he is "very satisfied." On the other hand, when it only covers them, the client is “simply satisfied”, and if on the contrary it does not comply with them, the client is “dissatisfied”. The greater the gap between what the client received and what he expected, the greater the level of frustration or satisfaction, as the case may be.
In a study conducted by Xerox, customers were six times more likely to repeat a purchase, when fully satisfied with their previous experience, than satisfied customers alone. That is, there is a great influence on the frequency of purchase and eventually on your average “ticket”.
In studies carried out in the United States, which reflect the "Customer Satisfaction Index", it has been found that approximately 25% of customers are not satisfied with their purchases. If to this we add that 95% of them do not complain, according to the Service Quality Institute, many companies will have a high level of attrition and will not know why.
If loyalty is closely related to satisfaction and satisfaction to expectations, then it is important to identify what generates them, which is nothing more than the brand promise expressed in advertising, word of mouth communication, the sales force, past shopping experiences, as well as all the touchpoints between the brand and consumers. All this will generate expectations, which will be difficult to exceed when the promise of the brand is very high. It is therefore advisable that the promise is good enough to capture the attention of its segment, but just and necessary for it to be exceeded and delight it. As Philip Kotler well put it, “It is no longer enough to satisfy customers; now they have to be delighted ”.
