They say that love makes the world go round. That wisdom can apply to dealing with your customers. But how does your startup business express that? Let’s dive into the colorful idea called customer love and discover how you can make it a cornerstone of your strategy.
What Is Customer Love Anyway?
The first time you hear the term customer love, you might think it as just a whimsical phrase. But as it turns out, this is a sensible customer service strategy. The challenge is in defining what it exactly is.
In its simplest definition, customer love refers to the strong affinity that your customers have for your brand. It goes beyond typical loyalty, as people would now want to become more connected with you. They are also more encouraged to share their affection for you with others.
Image from SmartKarrot.
Of course, this can be a bit of a subjective matter. Everyone expresses affinity to your brand in different ways. Industries also have different standards when determining how their customers are supposed to express such love. Thus, the definition can vary greatly.
Why Customer Love Matters For Your Startup Business
Okay, so you might wonder why you would want to make customers fall in love with you. As it is, customer loyalty is already a great driver of business success. But the strategy offers several benefits you would not want to miss.
Stronger Customer Evangelism
Image from Think Apps.
Creating customer evangelists is not an easy task. They need a strong emotional investment in your brand to talk highly about it. Inspiring customer love is one way to create that emotional attachment. It also creates a strong initiative for your patrons.
More Effective User-Generated Content
A specific consequence of customer love is that it encourages your patrons to create content for you. The user-generated content is arguably a strong form of endorsement from people. After all, it shows that they are willing to take some time to show others why your brand is worth it.
More Enthusiastic Social Sharing
Getting people to share your content on social media is a great way to increase your marketing reach quickly. Through fostering customer love, people become more willing to do it. That isn’t just among themselves. Your customers also become more enthusiastic sharing it with people outside their groups, increasing your reach.
Unraveling The Language Of (Customer) Love
Just like, ahem, romantic love, there is no quick way to develop customer love. It is like a long courting game between you and your customers. With that, you need to understand the language in which to express it best. There are five different elements you need to think about here.
Giving Gifts
One of the most effective ways to impress someone you are pining for is to give them gifts. But you don’t need to be extravagant in showering your beloved customers with presents. Instead, you can offer them simple in-product gifts such as discount codes and other special rewards.
Image from Snack Nation.
The key here is giving these at the right moment. Here, consider when your customers are most likely going to need that gift. For instance, discount codes come in handy during paydays, as these encourage them to spend more on you. You can also send gifts to mark special occasions like birthdays and professional milestones. Customer analytics will help you pinpoint those moments.
Quality Time
Every customer expects that you will be able to give them the time they need when engaging with your startup business. The challenge is defining what they mean by quality time. Each customer might want a different thing for their quality time with you.
For instance, they might want you to be:
- More attentive to them on social media and online conversations
- Give them value-added messages that help them decide
- Have more involved gimmicks to encourage continued product or service use.
- Offer in-product personalizations
Here, you should be ready to serve these differing preferences. For that, your startup business needs to strategize how to take in and process different requests. It is also a good idea to be more proactive in discovering other “quality” time opportunities that your customers might be interested in. Doing so is a great way to endear your brand to them more.
Affirmative Words
Since we are already talking about the language of customer love, you might also wonder what kind of words you can use to speak of that concept. It isn’t just about peppering the customer with “We love you”s.
Image from LinkedIn.
Be more affirmative in responding to them. Words of encouragement, in particular, have a strong effect on the way they respond to you. Meanwhile, congratulatory messages celebrate their achievements and persuade them to do more.
On the other hand, showing your genuine gratitude towards customers helps increase feature adoption. People get to see how well you appreciate them taking the time and effort to explore your products. That is especially great if you are introducing something new to your service.
Acts Of Service
Image from Nashville Wraps.
This is already pretty obvious. Great service will help you endear your brand to people. But there is more to it than just that. You should be strategic in how you provide that service. The goal here is not just to woo people to use your service. You also want to help them succeed with it.
Thus, plan out how they can achieve that success. Some of the ways that you can do that are:
- Helping them discover ”aha!” moments in your products
- Allowing them to do charitable work
- Helping them learn new product strategies.
Your options are endless here. By carefully aligning these services with your customers’ interests, your startup business provides them with a brand of service they will love.
The Physical Touch
Many people consider physical intimacy as the greatest expression of love. That is also surprisingly applicable to your startup business. Even if yours is an intangible product or service like software, you still need to provide some form of physical engagement.
Image from Buzztime Business.
So, you might wonder how you are going to deliver that. Hosting events is one of the most popular ways. For instance, you can hold a conference where your patrons can get together and share their knowledge. You can also provide event-exclusive content that people will want to have.
You should be present in all of these physical events. People will love your startup business more when they see that there are real people behind the brand they are enamored with. That also helps you better understand what people love about your brand.
Shower Your Startup Business Customers With Love And They Will Love You Back
Like what they say, love is a give-and-take relationship. And by taking time to give your customers all that love, you will be getting their affection in return. Master this art and your startup business is on its way to success. We are ready to help you out.