How to Create Advocate Customers

Customers are very important in any business, they are the reason why you establish a business, they are the people you sell goods and services too, they can also be your marketers that will increase your sales by telling new potential buyers about your products and services.

Customers are kings and you need to really treat them like kings.

Referrals from previous customers is the best and surest channel to pull more customers to your business. The truth is that most potential customers that are interested in your product always want to validate your marketing claims with what your previous and current customers say about your product.

Getting the views and opinions of previous and current customers have been made easier through the use of social media, this is why creating a group of customer advocates can be a smart marketing strategy for your business.

Having a unique and great product is a necessity for you to get great customers, this does not always lead to referrals. What it does is to create an experience that delights your customers so that they want to tell everyone about you and your product.

Research shows that 83 percent of customers that are satisfied with your product are willing and ready to tell more people about your products. This is why customer advocacy is very important and profitable for your business.

Customer advocacy will you to have more returning buyers and retain more customers, retaining customer requires some tactics but there is no shortcuts to it, you cannot hack personal relationships.

The strategies below will help you to retain new customers and convert both old and new customers to your business advocate.

The following are the importance of customer advocacy in your business:

• Using word of mouth to advertise a product converts more than any other means, according to research; 20% to 50% of all buying decisions are inspired by word of mouth.
• A customer referred by a customer advocate has a higher potential of retaining and there is guarantee that the new customer will buy the product.
• Information gotten from family and friends is more trusted than information from any other source. People also believe and pay more attention to product recommendation from family and friends than from any other sources.

The following are the best ways to create customer advocates:

1. Build a Solid Customer Relationship

Building a solid relationship is very important in telling your customers how you value their business and how you make their satisfaction your priority.

This will lead to a better trust between you and potential customer advocate. If you earn the trust of a customer then you are on your way to build an army of customer advocates.

Trust also bring about customer loyalty and customer retention, customer loyalty is the decision of a customer to continue buying from you due to the trust they have in you and your product.

While customer retention is the action that you take in order to retain as many paying customers as possible through customer loyalty. It is the trust your customers have in you that will retain them.

2. Deliver what You Promised

if you really want to have many customer advocates, you need tell the truth about your products and services, you must be able to deliver what is promise.

Customers value products and services that goes beyond their expectation and if you can provide this kind of service for them, they will surely tell others about their experience.

3. Interact with Every Customer

Every interaction you have with a customer is a golden opportunity to impress them and build a long lasting relationship with them.

After completing a work for a customer and he or she is happy with the work, you can use the opportunity to ask for a referral.

You can also use the social media platform to communicate and interact with your customers don’t just post information about your company alone, reply to post or tweets from customers. This little effort of showing that you care for them is the basis for customer advocacy.

4. Offer them Incentives

You can give out incentives to your customers based on each person they refer, this will go a long way in retaining your previous customers and the new ones too.

Referral programs are now popular, so you have to offer your customers something valuable when they bring in new customers.

5. Appreciate Your Customers

When customer buy your products, appreciate them by saying thank you, everyone loves to be appreciated.

When they also post positive reviews about your products and services on your websites or social media, write a public comment admiring the customer for the kind words.

You can also send them thank you note or gift for their efforts. This little act of appreciation will make them to continue advocate for you.

6. Know What Your Customers want

One of the most important things to know about your customer is to know what they want. If you know what they want, you will know the best way to satisfy them and earn their trust.

If you really want to develop a customer as a reference, you need to know everything you can about them and it is important they know more about you and your products too.

7. When You are Wrong, Admit It

You are not perfect, you will sometimes mess up, all that matters is for you to know how to handle the situation.

Whenever you didn’t meet the customer expectation, just apologize and thank them for the feedback, then make necessary amendment.

Showing customer that you are doing everything possible to put everything in place will show them how much you care and this can go along way to creating customer advocacy.

Final Words

Converting your customers to advocates is not difficult at all. All you have to do is just to follow all the strategies stated above and you will see that customers can help you in growing your business in an amazing way.

It doesn’t matter the kind of product or services you are selling, if you don’t have strong and solid customer advocates your advertisement and marking effort will not yield much.