Our online customer buying journey is about to come full circle. We’ve gone from someone first hearing about you all the way to a regular customer becoming a raving fan and helping you grow your business.
Let’s recap what we’ve talked about in the past few weeks:
We started with interest and awareness.
Someone already has an interest in the product or service you provide, but they just heard about your company. Someone either told them about you or they saw some sort of advertising (either online or in print).
Then we moved into findability and reputation.
Now that the person above has heard about you in some way (digital or otherwise), they’re going to go online and see what they can find out about you. And once they find you, what is that reputation like? How do you respond, what are people saying?
These are all things that prospective customers want to know about. Before a buying decision is made, they need to know about the experience of your other customers.
And once they read how amazing you are, they want to become a new customer. This is my favourite part, because now they’re ready to buy.
Now that we’ve gone from one end of the journey to the other, it’s time to set yourself up for raving fans.
According to Zendesk, a raving fan is someone who can’t stop talking to their friends, family, peers, and co-workers about the amazing customer service and overall experience they had with your business. Raving fans are good for business because they bring everyone they know to your doorstep.
So now the goal is to make it easy for these raving fans to go out and rave.
Here are three ways to enlist your customers to become raving fans online:
Always speak to the outcome that you gets your clients
This is a nudge to let people know that you do get results (if you’re service based) and that you have a really amazing product (if that’s what you sell). No matter the advertising or social posting, always speak to the outcome.
Deliver more than you promise to create a raving fan
Give as much added value as you can. Surprise and delight your new customers with this added value. Make it something really amazing just for them.
Continuously ask current customers for their opinion
Ask your customer base what you can be doing to make it a better experience and you will be amazed at the different ideas and strategies you get. Keep track of these in a simple FAQ that you have handy to share.
Reward those customers you identify as raving fans
If you don’t already, it’s time to start using your customer data to identify those who frequent your brand, spend more and refer others. These are your raving fans.
Let them know how special they are. Offer them amazing discounts, VIP parties, special offers and first-priority status to make sure they know how important they are to your business.
Also, your best clients deserve your best offers and personalized communication, so incorporate special perks into your customer reward system.
Using these strategies will help to give your customer a great experience online.
Donita Fowler is an online marketer who supports entrepreneurs in their quest to be the boss of their online platforms.
Donita is a Troy Media Thought Leader. Why aren’t you?
The views, opinions and positions expressed by columnists and contributors are the author’s alone. They do not inherently or expressly reflect the views, opinions and/or positions of our publication.
