If you walk into a shopping mall and observe people for 5 minutes, you will probably see three types of faces, happy faces, sad faces, and neutral faces.

Those emotions could be triggered by many other things, but their shopping experience also directly or indirectly contributes to it.

From a seller’s point of view, many things can be done to make a sad customer happy and an already happy customer, happier. For example, discounts, gift cards, and customer loyalty bonuses could be some options.

But for many businesses deciding on the right group of customers is often the toughest job. Without systematic customer data, it’s even harder.

Let’s come to the topic.

Any business planning to run a successful customer loyalty program should be able to segment its customers.

Customer Segmentation makes it easy to personalize your customer shopping experience. The easiest way you can evaluate and segment customers is by studying their buying experience.

  • VIP Customers – Those customers loyal to your brand. They love your product and services.
  • At-Risk Customers – Those customers who are not happy with some of your products or services.
  • Lost Customers – Those customers who once made a purchase but never come back.

How to Retain Your Customers?

Regardless of how your customer’s shopping experience was or has been, you can still retain your customer if you apply a little bit of consumer psychology.

Loyalty programs are the best way to keep your customers coming back to you. But again, you have to understand and determine the type of program that fits your customer’s need. Not all customers fall under the same category.

VIP Customers

VIP customers are basically loyal customers. Some are big spenders who make infrequent but high-value purchases, some don’t spend much on each purchase but their repeat purchases add up over time to a high customer lifetime value (CLV).

They’re the ones who bring in the most revenue to a business. Do you know? The top 1% of your customers spend 5 times more than the lower 99%. So, make sure to give your VIP customers world-class service if you want to retain them for a lifetime.

How to grow and retain your existing VIP customers?

Firstly, you should understand that frequent spenders and big spenders are not the only VIP customers. There are many factors that determine who is a VIP customer.  “VIP customers” itself is a huge topic that will need a dedicated post.

Some of the simplest strategies to keep VIPs coming back could be organizing exclusive online events, loyalty programs, referral programs, and customer appreciation gifts.

Among all the possible strategies, a loyalty program is the most effective one.

A VIP loyalty program should not be like any other program, it should be the best loyalty program. It should make them feel like real VIPs! Additionally, you should connect with them beyond their purchase and build a personal relationship.

At-Risk Customers – How to Retain Them?

These customers are those who had some bad experience shopping with you. If you don’t take care of VIP customers, they will also soon end up here.

How do you identify at-risk customers? Simply, look at the customer’s buying behavior. If a customer often visits your physical store or your e-commerce website but doesn’t make a purchase, this is one sign.

A frequent buyer suddenly turning cold is another sign. Abandoning a cart or infrequent account login, also indicate that you’re losing a customer.

Retain Your at-risk customers

Before you send them any gift cards, loyalty program offers, or special discounts, the first thing you need to do is “find trends in customer support tickets.” What are the most common complaints you get from your customers?

Once you understand the problems, fix them as soon as possible. Then use email marketing techniques to let the customers know that the problems they are facing are fixed.

Then, improve your customer support and send them more engaging emails. Side by side, start a customer loyalty program and invite them or even send a discount if they make any purchases.

Handle these customers with care and you will soon see them on the VIP list.

Turn Lost Customers into Returning Customers

Lost customers are those customers who made a purchase once or twice and never come back. For retailers, it’s hard to track this type of customer but for e-commerce websites, you will surely find their email and phone number somewhere in the database.

Most businesses don’t care much about lost customers because they think retaining them is a waste of time and money. But in reality, you will spend five times more money, time, effort, and resources in acquiring a new customer than in retaining an existing one.

But again, it’s not that easy. You’re not dealing with a new customer who saw your product and didn’t like it. You are dealing with a customer who once purchased your product and didn’t like it.

There could be many reasons why they didn’t continue buying, such as bad customer service, products or services that don’t meet their expectation in some way, or even rude salesmen.

How to bring back lost customers?

Like all customer-focused strategies, you will first need to address their needs. Like you will handle at-risk customers, you should also take care of lost customers.

To understand their actual problem you can offer them in-store points if you’re a retailer or cash back if they are on your e-commerce website for a simple feedback survey.

Once they fill up the survey you get an idea of why you might have lost them. Take the feedback seriously and work on improving it.

Secondly, use their phone number or email as a marketing tool. Send emails and text messages about how to use in-store points and cash back.

Send them cleanly formatted emails and text messages about the recent complaint they got from customers and how you and your team are working to fix it.

Take Advantage of Omnichannel Marketing Strategy

Do you know? You can use an omnichannel marketing strategy to retain your customers. 

Omnichannel is a multichannel approach to selling your product and services by all means possible. Some examples of omnichannel include click-and-pick services, online delivery, in-store purchasing, mobile app shopping, Amazon, Instagram shopping, loyalty programs, referral programs, and more.

Today all your customers own a smartphone and shopping on smartphones has become a lot more popular than shopping in-store. In 2022, the more shopping options you give your customer the more likely they are to stay with your brands.

For those business owners who are planning to start an omnichannel marketing strategy, our suggestion is that you start out with loyalty programs.

Loyalty programs are easy to handle and monitor when run on an e-commerce promotional tool like Shopuddy.

Give Your Customer the Attention They Need

Addressing customer problems and running a customer loyalty program campaign is one surefire way to retain your VIP, at-risk, and lost customers.

Depending on the type of business you run, you have to choose the perfect program for you. Some popular customer loyalty programs include cash-back loyalty, punch card programs, hybrid loyalty programs (best for retailers), tiered loyalty programs, and premium loyalty programs (best for VIP customers).

If you’re looking to create a stamp card or voucher for your loyalty programs, Shopuddy can help you. Shopuddy e-Reward specializes in providing loyalty programs to SMEs in different industries.

Click here to create an account on Shopuddy for free.