How to build loyalty with your e-commerce customers

December 16, 2022

When high-growth e-commerce companies move from short-term transactional relationships to building long-term emotional relationships, they see dramatic business results.

How do you make transactional customer relationships deeper and more emotional?

1. Points programs to incentivize customer actions

Points programs are by far the most popular type of program and work by incentivizing and rewarding customer actions. Because you can reward customers for virtually any micro-action (such as product reviews or social media sharing), points programs make it easy for you to include customers in every part of your brand experience.

The key to building lasting relationships with customers is to focus on the emotional side of commerce. Establishing emotional relationships with customers will drive them to seek out more opportunities to interact with your brand. This could be something as simple as completing a product review, recommending your brand to a friend or following your store on social media.

2. Referral programs

In an industry driven by aggressive price competition and increased ad noise, potential buyers are looking for voices they can trust, and getting your best customers to recommend your store can have the same impact in their social circles as a celebrity endorsement.

With a referral program, you can drive acquisition by incentivizing existing customers to share your brand with others, creating a social precedent that encourages other customers to share and interact with your brand.

3. Customer retention through VIP programs

Customers are motivated by the pursuit of higher status and increasing rewards. Your customers will even begin to brag about how much they have spent.

As customers progress through your program, you have the opportunity to offer more experiential or emotional rewards, such as invitations to special events, early access to new products and choose your own sale days.

What determines how successful your brand empire can be is the depth of the emotional relationships you develop with your customers. If you want customers to stay with you, refer new business to you and stay excited about your brand, you need to seriously consider how they feel about your store and the customer experience you offer.

Damon Baca

Co-Founder

Crossborderit (CBIT)

www.crossborderit.com/IOSS