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6 ways to turn loyal customers into brand ambassadors



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6 ways to turn loyal customers into brand ambassadors

When you start a business, you never really think of how much you'll have to spend on advertising.  You'll quickly realize how much it cost to advertise your company if you want to be competitive, and it could break your company before you begin to see any progress.  A great way to get the word out about your company is to have your loyal customers become brand ambassadors and talk about your products.  They will basically turn into your "word of mouth" marketing team, which will be extremely powerful in the long run.

Not everyone will be doing this for you, it will likely only be the ones who really love your products or services.  They love it so much that they willingly share your pages with their friends and family multiple times a month so you can get a little more traffic.  You'll need to acknowledge their existence and let them know how you appreciate their help. 

It's a pretty big thing to do since you can't always work with every potential client one on one.  What you'll have to do is set up a sort of strategy to talk with them, and that's where your brand ambassadors come in.  In this discussion I'll be going over 6 ways you can turn loyal customers into brand ambassadors


Make it so you customers can easily contact you
If you're looking for brand ambassadors, you'll need to mold them, and keeping your communication lines easy to find will make it so the people who are interested in your company can contact you fairly easy.  You will need to make it noticeable what you're doing with your business and watch who is commenting frequently and saying more than "Nice Post!".  If you constantly get news about your business in front of them, they will always be thinking about you, which will bring out the natural ambassadors for you to choose from.

You'll need to act like a real person, not a robot who pushes canned responses to their audience when they ask a question.  You need to keep a conversation going with your customers, if you can't do this, you won't see your sales spiking and your ambassadors won't want to work with you.  You'll need to learn the names of your potential ambassadors to show them you're paying attention and you're interested in what they have to say.  Whenever I'm talking with a client, I will always write down their name and save their phone numbers just in case they call back a second time.  If they do call back, I pick up the phone and simply say "Hey Steve!  How can I help you today?" and most of the time they are caught off guard because they thought I wouldn't remember them 6 ways to turn loyal customers into brand ambassadors  Simple things like this will make people turn into loyal clients because they see you as a real person, and not a script reader in a different country lol.

One of the main things you need to focus on, when it comes to customer service, is your response times.  You can't let a ticket sit for a day or two, you need to respond as quick as possible.  I like using ticket systems that come with a mobile app so I can answer anything through my phone no matter where I'm at.  I will get a notification of a new ticket and I will answer almost immediately, unless I'm driving or doing something that needs my attention 6 ways to turn loyal customers into brand ambassadors  You may not have all the answers since you're on your phone, so let them know that.  Tell them you're resounding to their ticket through your phone and you can answer their questions in more detail when you get back behind your desk where all of your information is.  They will know that you're just a human and you can't memorize everything, and they will like it that you simply replied to let them know you saw they contacted you 6 ways to turn loyal customers into brand ambassadors


Give Away Awards
You won't be able to give away awards to just anyone, you will have to keep these for select clients, usually the ones who have been loyal to you for a long time and haven't been problem clients.  You can offer a vast amount of things as an award such as a free month of service, a gift card to a business of their choice, a prepaid debit card (basically a gift card), and many other things.


You need to always go the extra mile with your clients
If you aren't already going the extra mile for your clients, you need to start doing it.  This doesn't mean you have to give them 28 free services if they just bought one thing from you, but you can over deliver that one thing and they will be happy 6 ways to turn loyal customers into brand ambassadors  Going the extra mile for a client could be a ton of things, but it's usually finishing what you were hired for and also doing something else the client would likely need and not charging them for it.

If you're selling a physical product, you can always put a hand written note in there saying anything you want, as long as it's positive.  The client will love this because you went out of your way to write something to them.


Listen to them if they complain
Not everything will be sunshine and rainbows, you will likely have some clients complaining about your services or products.  This is where you need to go into overdrive and that doesn't mean you have to get defensive.  What great business owners will do is treat the complainers like loyal clients and they will help out however they can.  You can send them a new product, re-do the service they think you messed up or simply fix what they think is wrong.  Pay more attention to these clients because they're the ones who will likely post negative reviews even if you don't deserve one.  On the other hand, these people are also the ones who will likely share your website after you fix their problem 6 ways to turn loyal customers into brand ambassadors


Be Personable
If you're talking to someone and they get sidetracked and start talking about the weather, you can relate to them all of the time because you have weather too lol 6 ways to turn loyal customers into brand ambassadors  You can always ask them if they have plans for the weekend, and if they talk about anything you know information about you can pick up a conversation with them.  Actually, you don't even need to know anything about their plans, you can just say something like "I've always wanted to (go there/try that/buy that)".  You need to remember that your customers are coming to your website because they like something about it, if they can carry on a conversation with you, they will likely stick around for a long time 6 ways to turn loyal customers into brand ambassadors


Have the best customer service possible
I touched on this early on, but it deserves it's own section because of how important it is.  You need to always be responding to your clients even if they're mad at you.  Not responding to them will just make it seem like you don't care and you'd rather focus on something else other than them.  If they see new content going up on your website, and you're not responding to them, they will likely leave your website and never come back.

Keep your customers coming back by providing top notch support. 



In Conclusion
You can turn a lot of your loyal clients into brand ambassadors by simply running a good company and treating them like people and not paychecks.  Don't automate your responses or uses responses that sound like they're pre-typed.  Sure, you can type out all of your common responses and save them for when you get the same questions over and over again, but you'll want to customize them each time you send them out.  You will need to change the names and little things within the responses so everyone feels special that you wrote out these long responses to their little question lol.  Respond quickly while treating them like a freind and you will notice them coming back more and more and also bring friends back to see your pages 6 ways to turn loyal customers into brand ambassadors



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Thanks!

Razzy

Comments

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Judas2018
Listening to complaints is very important. After all - the customer is always right. Delivering on time is very important as well. Even if your buyer requests edits or some tweaks to the final delivery of a project or purchase - nothing looks better on a serious freelancer than promptness.



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overcast
I think giving freebies and the options for the loyal customers. That is what makes the most money. So the local ambassadors, often have their own thing for the content. You can see that people often stay loyal to the brands who bring some happiness. It means things can be free as well. And they can build the ambassadorship on the top of that. That's the thing you have to consider as well. You have to understand that customers have their set of understanding as well.



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Corzhens
When you say clients stay with the brands that make them happy, what comes to my mind is the contentment for the product. We are also clients and we never change products even if the other product has a promo because we are already satisfied with the product that we are using. In any business, a good product will always stand out if the quality if incomparable and satisfactory to the users.



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overcast
I think it's also simplicity and loyalty. Many brands and the people in the brands love sticking with people. I know one client who stuck with me during the project only because of the way I helped them. So that approach definitely helps out. I'd say branding and the people factor makes things better.



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TimothyAlex
There is nothing more valuable than having a person customer who becomes a super fan and does your marketing for you. Potential customers will value that much more than one's own marketing message.



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wiseagent
Honestly, I think this is the best marketing strategy that exists in the whole world. There is no technology that can do this in a more honest way. I mean, the reach the technology provides is evidently greater, but can't be as friendly as word-of-mouth advertising.



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augusta
The importance turning loyal customers into brand ambassadors in relation to your business cannot be overemphasized. It is pertinent to always satisfy your customers if you want them to be loyal because customers always value satisfaction and to enable them to be your brand ambassadors you must give top notch. Remember, loyalty is earned and never bought.



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overcast
This is true. Loyalty takes years to be earned. And people can work through one customer to another. And this process can be good enough for establishing proper customers too. I am not sure how that happens for most of the people. It seems like the way this works, it requires a lot of efforts from where I see this.



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Baburra
I agree. I have seen a lot of companies just try to buy their way into customer loyalty and it never works. I have seen a lot of companies waste their time and money giving away freebies but when it comes to customer service they obviously don't care that much about their customers, which I think is the more important part. I don't care how much freebies I get from a seller when I know I can't trust them with my money once the payment has gone through.



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DarthHazard
Freebies are great because it actually tells your clients and customers that you value them and feel that they are important to your business and brand. It will make them feel a lot better about your business and may purchase more because of that. Listening to any complaints that they have is also a great ideal, it shows them that you are willing to listen to them and improve your service.



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Barida
I work with a firm that sells oxygen gas and once in a while, we give out discounts and in some cases, we share gifts to our customers which is a way to show that we really appreciate the sales they've made from us through those periods. It's just a great way to keep them coming.



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kgord
People who are treated right will often treat you right. It is important to make sure your customers know that you are in their corner. They will be much more likely to help you out if they know that you are in their corner.They can be your brand ambassadors.



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Baburra
I agree a lot with giving loyal customers some sort of token of appreciation. We have not employed any special gifts at our shop but we do give extra discounts to our repeat customers and sometimes even that alone is enough. Once they feel like they are getting some appreciation for giving you business for years, then they feel like they are dealing with something more than just a business that is cold and treats them like any other entity. Doing something special for them really makes them feel like they are being rewarded for being loyal and that they are being noticed for sticking with you, and sometimes this is enough of an edge for them to stick with you rather than going with your competitors.



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DenisP
A lot of the points you've made here are reoccurring and can be applied to so many other aspects of running a successful business. They are universal and create the foundation of providing reliable and quality service which earns the respect and loyalty of your clients.

Thankfully with the advent of social media, it has become so incredibly easy to keep in contact with your clients and really focus on the human aspect of your relationship. It used to be that you could only mail companies through physical mail or email, which is probably a hassle for most people these days.

Now you can just chat directly with someone through Facebook! It really helps reinforce the human side of things, which as you've stated, is incredibly important for establishing a quality, long term relationship with a customer.



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Pixie06
I don't really have a brand anbassador for my business. However, I do know some people who have referred others to my business. Maybe I consider to turn those clients into brand ambassadors. This is a great post which has provided me with some ideas.



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vinaya
The best marketing method is word of mouth. You don't have to spend money yet it is very effective. When it comes to looking for recommendations, people always trust real people instead of advertorials or celebrity endorsement. Therefore, you need to first make your customers loyal by offering him various incentives. Once he is loyal, he will also become your brand ambassador and the best thing is you don't even have to pay him money.



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Krisleen
You have mentioned about treating customers like people, not like paychecks. This reminds me of the business convention I have attended last time. The speaker said the same thing. I would like to add what he said. We should treat customers like people who put food on our table. Each time a client customer something, his/her purchase becomes part of what we earn for living so we shouldn't treat a customer like a walking dollar sign. Of all the things you have mentioned, I find customer service the most important. Give them all the convenience we can give be it in communication, quality of products, support, and treatment. Whether high profile or small customers, we should give them all a fair treatment and never discriminate them. It's true that they will keep on coming back to you and even bring their friends to you. More referrals can leverage your business.



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Barida
Your current customers can make or Mar your success in business in the sense that once they feel that you're not treating them the right way, they might end up saying bad things about your business and that will send negative signals to those new customers that would have come to buy from you as well.



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Corzhens
I like that idea of giving awards because when you receive something from a vendor, it makes you feel appreciated and you have the tendency to return the favor. In the years past, I had been receiving holiday gifts from some computer vendors. The classy bag given to me is still being used when we go abroad. There are so many items I had received from different vendors that I had the tendency to help them whenever I can. In fact, our laptop was bought last year from one of those vendors.



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