Ever since the rise of the social media era, instant gratification has become somewhat of a norm. Customers expect an almost immediate response whenever they need help from your business. Aside from emails, customers can easily contact you through various messaging platforms. Through the same platforms, you can also easily offer your gratitude towards your consumers.
Expressing gratitude is a powerful gesture. Gratification has become something customers expected to get after purchasing your product. Properly thanking your customers might increase their loyalty to you. This blog post will give you tips on how to properly gratify your customers.
Thanking Your Customers Will Build Emotional Connection
The simplest form of gratitude you can convey to your customer is saying ‘thank you’. To avoid sounding redundant, personalize the way you deliver your gratitude. And not only by verbally saying “thank you”, but you can also gratify your customers in other ways.
Customer loyalty programs are quite common for businesses. A loyalty program is like saying “thank you for your continued loyalty to our establishment, please accept this reward as a token of our gratitude for your continuous patronage”. It makes sure your loyal customers are properly rewarded while making them feel like an important part of your business.
Loyalty programs also held a beneficial impact to businesses. About 84% of consumers stated that they are more likely to stick to one brand that offers loyalty programs, and around 66% stated that loyalty programs influence their spending behavior.
Builds Trust by Thanking Your Customer
Customers’ trusts are earned as a reciprocal behavior to what they got from purchasing your product. Not only the product itself, but the entire purchasing process as an experience. Even if your product itself is to their liking, if they get an unpleasant experience, they would hardly do repeat orders. Customers would also like it if they caught a gesture of gratification from your company after the purchase is finished.
Properly gratifying, your customer shows both parties are standing on equal ground. By showing you genuinely care about your customer, you might strengthen their trust in you. In this era of the internet, customers are accustomed to getting instant responses, so instant gratification shows that customers have become your best interest.
Customers Would Recommend You and Thank You Back
In business operations, appreciation leads to trust, trust leads to loyalty, and loyalty leads to growth. Loyal customers are more likely to recommend your business to their colleagues when you properly appreciate them. This is because they know they can trust you, and when their colleagues need advice on products or services in your field, your customers would recommend you.
When you genuinely express your gratitude and truly value your consumers, they would return the gesture. There are various ways they can return your favor, one of them is stated above: recommending your business to their friends and relatives. Being loyal to your product or service is another example. It shows that customers feel valued by you and trust you, and as a sign of gratitude, they will choose your business time and time again.
Listen to Your Customer, You Will Learn
Listening to their feedback also counts as gratifying them. That way, you can learn about what they prefer, the flaws in your operations, or ways you can improve your service. Fulfilling customers’ demands is the essence of doing business, and sometimes some customers have their own preference or might have suggestions regarding your product.
What you have learnt from your customers could be implemented as product improvement, service upgrade, or even a whole new line of product. A supermarket chain in the UK renamed their Tiger Bread product to Giraffe Bread. They did this after a 3-year-old girl sent a letter to them, saying that the bread’s pattern looks more like a giraffe rather than a tiger.
Your Social Media Can Flourish
Social media can affect your business, too. Advertisements for your company’s social media accounts are more likely to get potential customer’s attention as opposed to conventional ads. It’s also cheaper to release content promoting your products or services in social media compared to, say, renting a billboard for a month.
Nowadays, interacting with customers through social media has become something to be expected from businesses. Customer services are also made easier through the use of messenger platforms, cutting off additional phone billing or commute fare for the customers needing immediate help.
Customers like posting images in their social media accounts. As posts with images typically get more views and responses, you can turn this to your advantage. As customers usually update their social media when they are feeling grateful, it is more than likely that they would also post a screenshot of your personalized thank-you message or other form of gratitude.
In so many words, instant gratification will help your business grow. By gratifying your customers, you can earn their loyalty and gain new ones through words of mouth from your customers to their colleagues.
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