How to improve customer loyalty: from designing membership mechanisms, simplifying shopping processes to exceeding customer expectations

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This article is written by Astralweb Co., Ltd.. Thank you for authorizing the “Content Hacker” website to reprint it. Thank you hereby.

For a website to be sustainable and profitable, the key factor lies in the support of loyal customers. When visitors are satisfied with the website’s services and charging reasons, they will naturally be willing to pay and become members of the website. They may also take the initiative to share with relatives and friends, which will produce a word-of-mouth marketing effect. Below, OSRI will teach you six concepts to effectively improve customer loyalty (Customer Loyalty)!

(1) Create unique web content and design an incentive membership mechanism

Web page quality is the basis for a website to provide high-quality website services and improve member loyalty. Only by continuously strengthening web page content can it have a chance to gain recognition from members. The way to create unique web content can be divided into four aspects, which are explained as follows:

1. Relevance and timeliness

• Is the content relevant to the theme of the web page?

• Does the content meet the visitor’s needs, goals and interests?

• How long will the content remain valid? When does it expire and has it already expired?

2. Completeness and correctness

• Is the content easy for visitors to understand?

• The format used to replace text, for example: are pictures, videos and videos clear?

• Is the content expression complete and coherent?

• Are there any typos or inappropriate wording in the content?

3. Readability and searchability

• Does the content make it legibility-readable for visitors?

• Does the content use formatting, including headings, font and color variations, bullet points, tables, etc.?

• Does the content comply with Search Engine Optimization?

• Can visitors find the content when searching for relevant keywords?

4. Expression, style and management

• Does the content expressed have a unique style?

• Is the content expressed professionally?

• Are appropriate methods or technologies used to operate the membership mechanism?

In addition, regularly adding incentives to the website charging mechanism is also a key factor in improving member loyalty. The incentives can be some time-sensitive reward mechanisms as shown in the following examples:

1. Join member discounts before a specific time

In order to induce visitors to decide to become members as early as possible, website operators often offer discounts on membership fees if they join within a specific period of time, and constantly emphasize that the opportunity is only once, and if you miss the time to become a member, you can only use the original price. Such inducements are usually quite effective.

2. Fill out the questionnaire and reply to get a discount coupon

In order to get members’ usage experience and suggestions, website operators often design to give discount coupons to members when they fill out the questionnaire and send it back. This method not only allows website operators to successfully obtain high-quality responses, but also allows members to feel that as long as they put in effort on the website, they can enjoy discounts, which will naturally increase their attention to the website. Therefore, this result is a win-win for website operators and members.

Note: The website must meet consumer expectations, eliminate unreasonable charging behaviors, and design the membership charging mechanism to meet the expected price of members as much as possible. The so-called “expected price” is the psychological valuation of a certain product by most consumers. If the website’s price exceeds the expected price, consumers will think that the fee is too high, which will weaken their desire to become a member. If the website’s charging mechanism is too far away from the market price, consumers will have doubts about the rights gained by becoming a member, and they may decide not to become a member.

(2) Simplify the website shopping process

Website operators must ensure that the membership membership and website shopping procedures are as simple as possible. Simplify all unnecessary form-filling steps, effectively guide netizens to quickly join the membership and further find the products or services they need, clearly explain the product value and service mechanism through the product webpage, and continue to be committed to doing anything that can simplify the transaction process, and further develop standard operating procedures (Standard Operation Procedure, referred to as SOP) to improve the operation speed. An example of the workflow for website shopping is as follows:

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(3) Understand the needs of website members

Website operators should track consumer satisfaction as much as possible so that they can provide online services that best meet their needs. Therefore, by giving them the opportunity to express their dissatisfaction with the website service through continuous interaction and improve it, the service process will become smoother. In view of this, the cost of providing services to each member will be reduced, effectively increasing the website’s profits. Below, Osiris divides understanding the needs of website members into two stages, and the instructions are as follows:

1. Ask, think

The first step is mainly to inquire and understand member needs through market research and communication among members. While communicating with members, consider the content of customer responses to better understand members’ needs. For example, the website can design an event to ask members to fill out a questionnaire, and inform members that as long as they fill out the questionnaire and return the questionnaire before the end of the event, they can get discount coupons or limited gifts. This can effectively obtain members’ opinions, and further think about how to exclude or satisfy members’ valuable opinions.

2. Observation and analysis

You must be good at observation and analysis, and use appropriate analysis systems to observe members’ gender, age, living area, education level, etc., and derive member needs by observing member characteristics. For example, a website can design a recommendation system. By selecting feature options from members, it can recommend solutions that meet the member’s needs through a related database. This concept can be used in a wide range of applications, including online ticket purchase, decoration design, renting/buying/selling/recreational vehicles, etc.

(4) Improve website service quality

Continuously improving the quality of website services will allow members who are satisfied with the website services to actively promote the website and recommend the website’s services to friends, neighbors, business partners or others. They will become voluntary marketers of the website. In this case, acquiring new members no longer requires the website to pay additional costs, but it will obviously increase the website’s profits. The methods to improve website service quality can be divided into four aspects, and the description is as follows:

1. Assurance─the personnel’s professional knowledge and demonstrated confidence

Website operators must fully understand the services and discount information provided by the entire website, try to predict questions that members may raise, and plan consistent responses in advance to ensure the credibility of the website.

2. Reliability──The ability to provide reliable, continuous, and correct services

(1) The content is reliable

The text, pictures, and videos on the website must be checked repeatedly for accuracy. Any typos and reference sources should be noted, and members must be provided with reliable and correct content.

(2) Personal information is reliable

Recently, due to the serious problem of personal information leakage, many people are unwilling to leave real personal information on the website. In view of this, the website must develop a personal information protection mechanism or provide relevant security certification marks such as ISO 27001 certification to ensure that members’ personal information is not leaked, so that members can operate the personal information on the website with confidence.

(3) Payment is reliable Websites must use safe and reliable payment mechanisms, such as PayPal and SSL (Secure Sockets Layer), to allow members to make online payments with peace of mind without any risk.

(4) Reliable service

For example, through online customer service, members can immediately answer their questions directly through online chat tools.

3. Convenience─Easy to obtain services

The services provided by the website must comply with the spirit of responsive web pages and be suitable for all types of Internet-connected devices, such as mobile phones, tablets, laptops or desktop computers. This can ensure that members can obtain and use website services anytime, anywhere and on any device.

4. Timeliness──the ability to provide fast service

Timeliness emphasizes quick response. If the website can clearly limit the time within which it will reply to members’ questions, it will greatly increase members’ satisfaction with the website’s service quality, thereby increasing their loyalty to the website.

(5) Handle member issues immediately

To establish a long-term partnership of mutual trust with members, you must be good at handling members’ complaints and then try to solve the problems they encounter. Complainants who have their complaints resolved satisfactorily are more likely to become the site’s most loyal members than members who are never dissatisfied.

Of course, member satisfaction is not equal to member loyalty, because dissatisfied members do not necessarily complain, but just turn to other websites; however, if you want to gain member loyalty, you must have a minimum member satisfaction as the basis-member complaints can be transformed into the best endorsement for website establishment and service improvement.

(6) Meet members’ individual requirements and exceed members’ expectations

Often websites will predict consumer actions based on the current performance of competing websites. In fact, all big data about consumer statistics and psychology can only be used for reference; therefore, website operators must change the thinking of traditional mass marketing and pay attention to meeting the personalized requirements of members. The most effective way is to analyze members’ user behavior through real-time analysis tools. Use the member knowledge gained to build attractive and irreplaceable website services.

In addition, website operators should not stick to the basic and predictable level, but provide unexpected and surprising services to members; for example, when a visitor connects to the website and clicks on a product to add to the shopping cart page, the website conducts correlation analysis based on the product items selected by the visitor, and instantly recommends related products to the visitor for them to choose from. Such real-time services are beyond the visitor’s expectation, and the visitor is very likely to choose some products other than what they expected to buy because of the website’s proactive recommendations.

Customer loyalty refers to the degree to which, due to the influence of many factors such as price, service, etc., customers develop feelings for the goods or services of a certain website, form a preference for them, and repeatedly purchase the products or services of the website over a long period of time. Therefore, as long as website operators carefully manage customer loyalty by following the six concepts mentioned in this article, they can ensure the website’s continued revenue and achieve the goal of sustainable website operations.

★ Photo Credit: Astralweb Co., Ltd.

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Further reading

• Laying out the mobile commerce market to welcome the new era of Taiwan’s e-commerce

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