• Twitter
  • LinkedIn
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Youtube
Login  | Call now: (800) 780-7133
Kapitus
  • Problems We Solve
  • Products We Offer
  • Partner With Us
  • Blog
  • APPLY NOW
  • Search
  • Menu Menu
La femme regarde l'ordinateur.

Free and Accessible Tools to Create and Maintain a Customer Feedback Loop

August 18, 2022/in Featured Stories, Sales and Marketing/by Brandon Wyson

Customer feedback loops represent synchrony between business owners and their customers. For feedback loops to become truly successful, you need to not only show a willingness to accept customer feedback but you also need to find an effective means to receive that feedback. Certainly, all small business owners take comments, reviews, and customer advice seriously … but collecting feedback and analyzing your customers’ sentiments can be a time-consuming and expensive effort if not managed correctly. It is then imperative that business owners interested in creating and maintaining customer feedback loops know about free and accessible tools available to them .

Getting a feedback loop off the ground and keeping a loop in working order, however, are two entirely different processes. So, depending on your business’s current capacity and scope, certain tools may suit your system better than others.

Creating a Feedback Loop

Free Survey Platforms

Google Forms: Google Forms is a great starting point for small businesses who are interested in creating their own surveys but aren’t certain what features would best suit their current arrangement. Unlike other big-name tools which limit the number of responses free users can receive or view per survey, Google Forms allows users essentially unlimited options for creating their own multiple choice or open-ended questions.

SurveyPlanet: Another robust option for creating surveys from scratch is SurveyPlanet which houses all of the tools a small business would need to get feedback and more. On top of legible and slick templates, SurveyPlanet allows for easy sharing via social media, meaning that if you ask in your survey, your most loyal customers can actively widen your feedback loop by re-sharing your surveys. On SurveyPlanet’s free plan, administrators can create infinite surveys and collect infinite results meaning you can continue using the same survey indefinitely – unlike other tools which may limit your total engagement.

Free Live Chat Platforms

Tidio Live Chat: For ease of integration and versatility without the price tag, Tidio Live Chat just might check the right boxes for small business owners looking to begin a live chat system with no financial obligation off the bat. Tidio’s free, basic account allows business owners to integrate a widget for the program directly into any WordPress, Wix, Squarespace, or Shopify website. Tidio allows free accounts to chat without message limits with up to 100 unique visitors per month. One big downside to Tidio’s free package, however, is that only 3 chat operators can work simultaneously for your website. Impressively, however, Tidio’s free plan also allows up to 500 follow-up response emails to be sent to chatters each month; this can be a big help for businesses looking to improve their feedback loop’s efficiency.

HubSpot Free Live Chat Software: HubSpot’s well-known CRM software comes packed with a lesser known live chat software which may just fit your small business’s needs. If your business isn’t already using HubSpot for your CRM solution, you can set up a free account easily. HubSpot Live Chat’s free package functions near-identically to Tidio’s widget format, so add the chat system directly to your website. Unlike Tidio, however, HubSpot gives free users access to their chatbot builder program meaning that business owners can customize their responses and styles even more than any other free program. Free users, however, must deal with rather visible HubSpot branding and an inability to customize the color of their chat widget. Of course, if you find HubSpot’s program fitting to your needs, even the most basic paid packages allow you to customize your bot to almost no end.

Maintaining a Feedback Loop

Free Data Analysis Tools

LibreOffice Calc: LibreOffice is a collection of software acting as the open-source alternative to the Microsoft Office Suite. While Microsoft Excel has several means to get free access like student accounts and other workarounds, LibreOffice Calc offers identical and sometimes superior tools at absolutely no cost. Calc is likely one of the best free options for transforming your survey and customer sentiment data into actionable information.

Google Charts: If you are looking to create more complex and detailed data visualizations, finding a free tool becomes increasingly difficult. Luckily, Google Charts includes several of the more high-end features typical of paid alternatives. As long as you know your way around the basics of HTML, you can even add charts and meaningful data to your websites and employee resources in order to quickly share visualized data with relevant staff.

Free Social Media Monitoring/Listening Tools

Mention.com: Monitoring and analyzing your business’s mentions on social media without the help of a tool can become a full-time job faster than you may think.  Even if you have a staff member meaningfully watching your business’s social media mentions and chatter, sites like Mention.com aggregate social media posts based on keywords and phrases, streamlining the most menial part of social listening. Mention.com is free and allows users to track keywords in both mentions and replies between Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.

Google Alerts: While traditionally seen as a tool for aggregating news stories based on a similar topic, Google Alerts can be a useful tool for bookmarking direct mentions of your business on the web. Google Alerts are completely free and can be bound to any keyword you choose. Further, Google Alerts can be tuned to specific platforms like Facebook or Twitter, but of course, maintaining a meaningful feedback loop means collecting and acting on as much data as possible. Once you set a Google Alert, uses of your chosen keyword will be sent to an inbox or device whenever a match is found.

Of course, Google Alerts doesn’t help businesses follow up directly on customer feedback unless the business owner goes out of their way to investigate the source and legitimacy of every alert. But as free tools go, Google Alerts can help small business owners get a better idea where and who is talking about their business before they further fine-tune their strategies.

A Unique Loop for Every Business

It’s unlikely that a small business would need to use every single tool on this list to create a fulfilling feedback loop for their business, but that simply speaks to the case-by-case nature of feedback loops themselves. Feedback loops change and grow in parallel with the products and practices of the business itself. In that same right, feedback loops are anything but static. These free tools are safe and test-friendly playgrounds in which you and your staff can develop the right system to collect and meaningfully respond to feedback. 

https://kapitus.com/wp-content/uploads/iStock-1283021188.jpg 1160 2200 Brandon Wyson https://kapitus.com/wp-content/uploads/Kapitus_Logo_white-2-300x81-1-e1615929624763.png Brandon Wyson2022-08-18 19:14:162022-08-18 19:14:21Free and Accessible Tools to Create and Maintain a Customer Feedback Loop
Stylized woman in text box points to a star

How to Create a Customer Feedback Loop

August 15, 2022/in Featured Stories, Sales and Marketing/by Brandon Wyson

It’s no secret that customer feedback is some of the most useful data you can collect as a small business owner. Being that your customers are the exact same people buying your products and soliciting your services, they are exactly the people whose feedback, then, should matter the most. It is equally not a secret, however, that customer feedback can be very difficult to collect, or more specifically: customer feedback is most helpful in larger and more consistent quantities. It’s no wonder mega-corporations like Amazon and Walmart have dedicated teams who synthesize internal customer feedback data; but what does all of this mean for small business owners? Collecting customer feedback can make a drastic difference in your bottom line and help you usher out or in new products and services specifically for your customers. This is the main reason small business owners ought to know the ins and outs of a “customer feedback loop” and sustainable means to create one for your business.

What is a Customer Feedback Loop and Why Do You Want to Create One?

A customer feedback loop draws on the scientific concept of a feedback loop in which two related objects act in response to each other and have a mutual impact. A customer feedback loop, then, is a means for a business to maintain that same mutual impact with their customers by acting on their feedback. The “loop” essentially means a grand return to equilibrium. But in the case of the business-to-customer relationship, that equilibrium lies more often with the customer than the business. A customer feedback loop means that customer feedback is acted on directly and that their recommendations or complaints are alleviated, thus, returning the customer to an “equilibrium.”

Maintaining a healthy customer feedback loop is a sign of a healthy business. Plus, the best way to collect meaningful customer feedback is having customers believe their feedback will be taken seriously. If customers believe their suggestions are being sent to an unmonitored inbox or are being summarized into “good” and “bad,” it is exceedingly unlikely your business will ever reap meaningful feedback. A healthy customer feedback loop begins with businesses making a concerted effort to communicate with customers, hopefully creating a more engaging relationship with your business.

Elements of a Feedback Loop and How to Harness Them

Collect Your Data: The best advice we can give: start small. Collecting customer feedback can be done on the personal level or with digital outreach. Depending on the size, style, and scope of your business, your method of collection will vary: if you are a brick-and-mortar store, you can collect your data directly on your premises, or you can utilize technology. If your business works online, use already existing points of online engagement to collect your data. There is a wide assortment of tools that are economical and user-friendly that you can leverage  to streamline feedback collection.

Several marketing and customer relations experts have weighed in over time explaining what style, length, or feel of questions resonate strongest with customers. Some think broad 1-10 questions get to the root of systemic issues in business while others invite open-ended personal responses from customers. There is no wrong way to collect feedback except for failing to respond and act on that feedback. As the business owner, you (and your team, if applicable) need to  feel out what style of questions would best engage your audience and what style of question may bring in the best answers. This process ought to operate as trial and error; like a customer feedback loop itself, improve your questions and quality of surveys as you continue to offer them to your customers.

Process Responses: Following your first round of feedback, share results widely throughout your business. Small businesses collecting data on the individual level with their customers don’t need an algorithm machine to tell them what each piece of feedback says, sit down and read each and every piece of feedback. Show that data to all front of house and customer-facing staff as well and make a daily, weekly, or semi-regular ritual of reading customer responses together with those relevant parties.

Sort out your responses and customer data in a thoughtful system which makes it clear what data you have responded to directly or acted upon and what remains unchecked. As explained above, acting on that feedback is essential in granting customers the confidence and faith that their feedback is both worth them writing and worth your reading.

Close the Loop: Individually thank each customer who has given you feedback. No matter if you collect your feedback in person or digitally, respond to their feedback with both a genuine recognition of the importance of their feedback as well as a specific reference to a comment from their feedback. This may sound obvious to any small business owner who has dealt with responding to customers in the past but this point bears repeating as your feedback loop becomes more successful and more feedback comes in, it is essential that you and your team give the same dedicated level of care to each and every response.

In order for a feedback loop to be truly successful, however, business owners must make genuine changes or reparations in response to feedback. Here is a broad example: if customers are disappointed with the lack of loyalty perks and programs, you must close that loop by giving a valid explanation as to why an enhanced loyalty program can’t exist right now and/or  to create and advertise new loyalty  programs and explain to those customers that their feedback inspired the system. Herein lies the most taxing part of a customer feedback loop: there are no shortcuts and no workarounds. Business owners and relevant parties must act on feedback in a way that displays to customers that their feedback is valuable; this is the only way to close the loop.

Good and Bad Feedback Makes a Business Better

Think of the customer feedback loop this way: when a customer submits feedback, they open the loop. That loop then isn’t closed until the business owner or relevant parties prove to the customer that their feedback was meaningfully processed and will have an impact on the future of the business. It truly doesn’t matter if the customer’s feedback is good or bad; business owners who run a thoughtful feedback loop system ought to be grateful for every piece of feedback, positive or negative as that shows customers are both actively thinking about your business and are inspired enough to  know how they feel about your business. Better than being lukewarm, customer feedback shows that your business is making an impact, so it’s on you to prove to your customers that their time spent creating feedback wasn’t wasted. In a way, it’s “their” business as much as it is yours, so make your customers’ impact visible and authentic.

https://kapitus.com/wp-content/uploads/iStock-1356804814.jpg 1901 2200 Brandon Wyson https://kapitus.com/wp-content/uploads/Kapitus_Logo_white-2-300x81-1-e1615929624763.png Brandon Wyson2022-08-15 13:50:562023-05-01 15:08:36How to Create a Customer Feedback Loop
la femme ustiliser le portable.

Adding New Products & Services Without Overextending

August 11, 2022/in Featured Stories, Sales and Marketing/by Brandon Wyson

Successful businesses naturally tend to expand. As a business’s sales, resources and headcount rise, it comes as no surprise that new products and even ventures into new industries will soon follow. While it’s not baffling for Amazon to start a streaming service or Uber to start car rentals, small businesses often deal with a unique set of questions and constraints before moving into a new industry. Small businesses looking to expand their services or products into areas wholly new to their team or history must do so cautiously and strategically as you have much more to lose than your larger counterparts if things don’t go as planned. 

Small businesses feeling out new products can run the serious risk of overextending or alienating existing niches. The most thoughtful small business expansions should not be done only for capital gain or easy parallel growth; your public image and current customer perception must be considered before any major change to your business’s services or products. Consider this list of conditions to weigh if your business (and your customers) risk overextending when branching into new product territory.

Parallel Expansion

Before making a change or expansion that would dramatically change or redirect the type of product or services you offer, find out if your customers are already satisfied. The most successful expansions are parallel in that they both expand your scope and bring in new clients as well as further benefit your existing base of customers. Here’s an example: A basic one-room laundromat manages to buy/rent an adjacent space and plan an expansion. While adding in more washers and dryers is certainly a safe bet, management is also considering investing in space for dry-cleaning and other specialty services. This is a perfect example of a measured, safe, and likely parallel expansion that customers who already do their washing and drying could more than conceivably take advantage of those further services. Better yet, new customers would be likely to take advantage of the business’s original wash and dry services even if they came in for their new specialty services at first.

Parallel expansion, however safe, often doesn’t account for branching into wholly new industries or reinventing your business. But, if you plan to offer entirely different services in addition to your existing ones, it is likely wise to make sure you don’t alienate your existing customers in doing so. In fact, if done properly, your existing customers could be your very first customers for the new service!

Increasing Overall Customer Value

If your expansion is not wholly replacing your existing products, try to find ways to have both old and new products benefit the same customers. 

Offering new products that appeal to your existing customer base is important but building a full relationship with new customers who benefit from your pre-existing services is equally important. Consider this: a bicycle rental company has enough trained staff and experts to begin offering repair services in addition to their rental services. Bicycle rentals and bicycle repairs are services needed by two  different target markets; but that doesn’t mean that consumers can’t benefit from both services. If a new customer brought into the shop because of the shop’s new repair service finds out the shop also offers rentals, they could just as well rent bicycles the next time friends or family visit. In the best cases of product expansion – those that have the best chance of being successful – both avoid alienating existing customers and make it extremely easy for new customers to benefit from existing services as well.

Customer Research

Whether or not your business is able to financially support an industry-based product or service expansion usually doesn’t give a full enough picture as to whether that expansion is a sound choice. Market research is an essential step before launching an expanded product line. Survey your existing customers and collect as much input as possible before even considering a major expansion. While the interests and passions of business owners ought to play a major role in the expansions of their own businesses, those passions run the risk of turning dry if customers don’t share those sentiments.

For customers that patronize your business in person, gauge their interests on the spot. Or better yet, write up a collection of multiple choice, Y/N, or open-ended questions about your business that can be asked quickly during a check-out process or a visit to the office. Those customers enthusiastic about your business and who already consider your business part of their daily rituals are quite likely to participate especially if you can demonstrate how helpful their input truly is.

If you have a website or a list of customer email addresses, consider creating a free survey with straightforward and simple questions. Questions for digital surveys ought to be considerably less time-consuming than in-person counterparts. No matter the medium, your survey should be direct: ask very specifically… “If our business were to offer (whatever new product or service), would you add that to your existing purchases at our business?” or “Are you satisfied with our existing products or services?” Once you have a pool of thoughtful and legitimate responses, sit down with trusted staff and all relevant decision makers in your business to see if your customers’ opinions can inform expansion direction.

Marketing

Making a major change to your product line or business structure is hard enough to follow through on internally, but it is essential that you and your team make sure your customers are just as excited about your changes as you are. Consider the ways that your best and most frequent customers learn about your business. Do you have an email list? Do you send coupon circulars in your local area? Do you  sponsor and have a booth/space for fairs or events? Investigate the ways customers interact with your business and use those spaces to celebrate your business’s changes.

A worst-case scenario and the opening steps to overextending in a small business is investing in a new product and having that new part of your business overshadowed by your existing system. Make sure your customer knows the most specific details about your new venture and any potential ways it may affect how they already interact with your business.

Likewise, make sure you have a well-thought out strategy to launch and market your new products to any new potential customer groups.

Pilot Runs and Steady Entries

Wherever possible, it is generally a good idea to run pilot programs and ease your business into any kind of major changes. Of course, depending on your existing industry and infrastructure, it’s possible that large investments and equipment may block the way to meaningfully showing off your new product or venture but try to find some creative means around those roadblocks. Start by offering the new product/service on a small scale and limited basis to a small subset of existing customers to gauge interest. If the trial program goes well with those customers, that is proof enough that the expansion may be worth the fuller investment.

No Way to Know but Many Ways to Try

Every expansion is a risk. No matter how dead-set or fully certain you and your team are that you’ll succeed, the only way to know is to try. Do your research and make sure your staff are equipped and educated about your upcoming changes and do the same for your best customers. Small business owners are uniquely informed about the needs of their customers and often equally aware of their own abilities. Trust your instincts and listen to your customers, and overextension ought to be the least of your worries.

https://kapitus.com/wp-content/uploads/iStock-1056069660.jpg 1466 2200 Brandon Wyson https://kapitus.com/wp-content/uploads/Kapitus_Logo_white-2-300x81-1-e1615929624763.png Brandon Wyson2022-08-11 14:19:172022-08-11 14:19:23Adding New Products & Services Without Overextending
Four sit and discuss

Turn Your Local Sponsorship into a Lasting Partnership

May 31, 2022/in Sales and Marketing/by Brandon Wyson

Sponsorships are one of the best opportunities to both support causes you and your business are passionate about and increase brand recognition. But another often unspoken benefit of sponsoring your local events is the potential to form new partnerships in your local community. Whether with event organizers or simply parallel businesses, sponsorships are a fantastic first step to take when seeking a partnership with a like-minded business. Forming a lasting partnership, however, is often easier said than done. It is  imperative, then, for small business owners to understand both sponsorship and partnership  best practices that you should bring to the table each time you’re considering sponsoring an event; you may just change your business forever.

Don’t Sponsor for the Sake of It

Businesses enthusiastic about upping brand awareness may be quick to sponsor multiple (potentially lower-priced) events in their local area but this is often a misstep. While having your company logo present at several local events is a good way to maybe increase that logo’s recognition, this isn’t particularly likely to help your business form a lucrative partnership with either the event organizers or any non-competing businesses in your area. “Quality, not quantity” is the name of the game when your business wants to see results from your local sponsorship.

Go out of your way to connect your business with events that focus on your target audiences and those who are most likely to be enthusiastic about your business. Aligning your business with the proper event can be a lengthy process but that effort is almost never wasted.

Speak to Organizers Directly

Get on the phone, or better yet, get in your car and meet with event organizers directly. It is, admittedly, very easy and much less time consuming to run all your correspondences through email; and this has become the standard for many sponsorships today. But if you genuinely want both your sponsorship to stick and eventually form a lasting partnership, you and your business must be recognized for putting in extra effort worthy of recognition. If event organizers know you by name and face, you are already doing your business a major favor.

Another major benefit to personal correspondence is the potential to meet other sponsors or parallel businesses. Use the time in meetings and planning before your event begins to set the stage for great partnerships; you can’t do that as effectively over email. Plus, those businesses and sponsors who also make an appearance and meet with organizers directly are likely some of your best candidates for meaningful partnerships as their business’s interests are very likely to align with your own.

Physical Presence at Every Event

This furthers the point that the basis of forming partnerships is showing up and showing that your business cares. Be certain that each and every event that your business sponsors has a physical presence; and not just anyone: make sure that the employees and representatives who are going to events on your behalf are enthusiastic, and ready to answer questions about your business. If a parallel non-competing business makes contact at an event, the worst-case scenario is making a lukewarm first impression.

Take on Big Ticket Events with Partner Vendor

Sponsoring larger events with more eyeballs and bigger ticket slots can be a major investment for small businesses; that is if they do it alone. Ask event organizers if you and a partnering business can share a sponsorship tier. This way, you both further a partnership with that relevant business and are more likely to increase the return on investment at your sponsored event of choice.

Cold calling for a partnership isn’t always the best bet, so sharing a big-ticket sponsor spot can be a great strategy to get closer to a business you think may make a good partner. Think tactically for your business but don’t forget that the nature of a sponsorship is supporting the cause you are backing. Some event management teams, however, may turn down split ticket sponsorships, as it may devalue higher-priced slots. In that case, get creative with your fellow sponsors and think of ways to work together for mutual exposure at your event of choice.

Thoughtful Follow-Ups

Write personalized, handwritten where possible, thank you notes to event organizers after a successful sponsorship. And quickly follow up on any leads that came up during the event. Lasting partnerships are born out of mutual respect and time spent, so it is imperative that your business shows a meaningful gesture of gratitude and good will quickly after your event ends. While this may sound obvious, these steps bear repeating. Especially for small businesses who do not have a dedicated marketing or event coordination team, small gestures like these are the most likely to slip through the cracks after a time-consuming event.

Greater Involvement, Greater Results

Any small business can form a partnership and any small business can pay for a sponsor slot; that’s the easy part. Making that sponsorship both engaging and likely to attract interest from relevant parties is naturally a lengthy process. But this article isn’t called “how to make a partnership,” the word “lasting” implies that you and your business must make a lasting impression on those businesses you plan to partner with and event organizers who believe in your business. Putting in visible extra effort and showing genuine interest in the event at hand are non optional ventures.

https://kapitus.com/wp-content/uploads/iStock-1140547711.jpg 1468 2200 Brandon Wyson https://kapitus.com/wp-content/uploads/Kapitus_Logo_white-2-300x81-1-e1615929624763.png Brandon Wyson2022-05-31 16:35:472022-05-31 16:35:47Turn Your Local Sponsorship into a Lasting Partnership
Marketing Sales Retention small business Kapitus

Sales 101: Don’t Forget About Customer Retention!

May 24, 2022/in Featured Stories, Sales and Marketing/by Vince Calio

Filling your pipeline with sales leads is one of the most important tasks for you as a business owner. Afterwards, however, what’s even more important is customer retention – turning your first-time customers into repeat customers, or better yet, lifetime customers. Getting repeat customers is crucial to the future of your business, as it guarantees future sales, and selling to an existing customer is typically cheaper in terms of customer acquisition costs than acquiring a new one.

There are several ways to encourage return shoppers, even during these harsh economic times.

Automation Works

Manually keeping in touch with your existing customers can be an exhausting task, and one that you probably don’t have the time and bandwidth to do as a small business owner. Fortunately, there are software packages out there that can do the work for you by automatically sending text and email messages to existing customers advertising a promotion or a sale, conduct a customer satisfaction survey or send them newsletters or blog post alerts if your website offers content.

On average, email marketing produces an ROI of $36 for every $1 spent, according to consumer research group Litmus. Additionally, 97% of Americans own a cell phone and use their phones to shop, and according to a study by Simply Texting, mobile phone marketing campaigns have an average conversion rate of 45%. There are many email automation software packages out there (and some of them are free!) to choose from, as well as SMS marketing tools you can use to automate these processes.

“Because You’re a Loyal Customer…”

One of the most powerful methods of getting a repeat sale is to make the consumer feel as if they’re getting a special discount or bargain. You can use this as a strong selling point to existing customers who already know your brand and, presumably, trust you. Send them special offers on either updated products or ones similar to what they’ve already purchased via a text or email campaign. This will make your existing customers feel special and less likely to view your promotional messages as spam.

Additionally, “aftersales” are a great way to retain customers, especially if you’re a services firm such as a cleaning firm or a car mechanic shop. You should reach out to existing customers to gently remind them that they may be due for another cleaning, or that they’re cars are due for another oil change or maintenance.

Do Your Employees Care?

Let’s face it, whether you own a retail store or an eCommerce business, your employees are the key to successfully retaining customers, as they are largely the ones who deal with them and thus provide the “customer experience.” As consumers, however, we all-too-often deal with employees who simply don’t care – be it a sales clerk at a retail store or a customer service representative on the phone. These employees are often young and get paid subsistence-level wages, and therefore aren’t concerned about whether customers choose to buy products from your company. Even if you tell them that you’re unhappy and threaten to never buy a product from their company again, their response will most likely still be total apathy.

If this is the situation you find yourself in as a small business owner, you can join the rest of the older generation and ruminate over Millennials’ and GenZers’ supposed lack of work ethic, or you can take a more constructive approach by asking yourself, ‘Am I doing enough to incentivize my employees?’ Offering performance-based bonuses, career training on sales, being flexible when it comes to work schedules and promoting a strong team environment will motivate your employees to want to contribute. 

Listen to Feedback!

Listening to your customer feedback is key to improving your business, and how you react to it is one of the important keys to retaining customers. You should diligently examine whether your business has been reviewed. Think of every review, whether it’s on Yelp!, Google Reviews or social media, as a chance to retain a customer. You should also view negative reviews as positive – if they’re reasonable and rational, they will offer you a roadmap on how to fix issues with your business to make it more attractive to customers, as well as a chance to appease any unhappy customers. 

It’s also important to personally respond to both negative and positive reviews. With negative reviews, be apologetic and offer either some sort of clarification or ways to make it up to the customer. Other consumers will see that and this will enable you to make a positive impression on other potential customers. 

Retention is Key to Survival

As a small business owner, much of your time will be spent trying to gain new prospects and customers. While that is certainly vital for your business, what’s even more important is keeping the customers you already have. Relatively small investments in automated email software packages and in a good training program for your employees will go a long way in ensuring the longevity of your business.

https://kapitus.com/wp-content/uploads/Sales-retention-feature-photo.jpg 1333 2000 Vince Calio https://kapitus.com/wp-content/uploads/Kapitus_Logo_white-2-300x81-1-e1615929624763.png Vince Calio2022-05-24 05:00:092023-03-03 12:48:18Sales 101: Don’t Forget About Customer Retention!
Should you hire a lead gen firm

Should You Hire a Lead Generation Firm?

May 6, 2022/in Featured Stories, Sales and Marketing/by Vince Calio

Generating sales leads is probably the most important ongoing task to ensure the survival of your business, but doing so on your own can cost you time, and deplete your personal bandwidth. If this is the case, you may want to consider handing over that task to an outside firm that specializes in generating sales leads for businesses such as yours. 

Of course, hiring an outside firm will cost you, but it can also grant you peace-of-mind that specialists are handling the most crucial aspect of your business. Before you hire one, however, you need to evaluate your business to determine if this is an appropriate move for your current business situation. .

Dollars and Sense

The biggest question to ask yourself when deciding whether to hire an outside lead gen firm is: will it be cost-effective? Lead generation services – especially B2B – often charge you per lead or can cost you thousands of dollars per month. As a result, your customer acquisition costs (CAC) will be driven up. The hope, however, is that the cost of hiring a lead generation firm will be offset by increased sales resulting from the extra sales prospects that the firm is bringing to you. 

Due to the cost, however, lead gen firms are probably most useful to high-margin small businesses that sell big-ticket items or services: medical offices; accounting and law firms; car dealerships, real estate companies, etc. If the increased CAC is so dramatic that it forces you to raise the price of your products, then hiring a lead generation service is probably not your best bet. You’d be far better off putting in the time and effort to generate sales leads on your own.

While you may have the budget to hire a led gen firm, it doesn’t mean that your budget is infinite. Some firms will charge you per month, while others may charge you per lead. It’s important that you determine which pricing plan would make the most sense for you.  

If you’ve done the math and concluded that hiring a lead generation firm will benefit you, it’s crucial that you do your research and find out as much about them as possible beforehand to determine if they are the right fit for your business. 

#1 Do Your Due Diligence!

Like you would with any other outside vendor, you need to research any lead generation firm you might be considering. First, find out if they’re ranked by any credible business source. For example, Fit Small Business, an online resource for small businesses, offers reviews and rankings of the most popular lead generation firms. 

Also, go to each candidate’s website and look for customer reviews and find out if they have experience in generating leads in your particular industry or geographic location. Try to get an idea of their pricing and how they get their leads. These are the firms that have experience in knowing where to look for sales leads and how best to glean information from them such as income range and interests.

#2 Do They Produce Quality Leads?

Poor quality sales leads won’t do anything for your conversion rate and worse yet, land your emails or phone calls on spam lists. What you want, besides contact information, are prospective customers who can afford – and are generally interested in – your products or services. In other words, you want leads that will produce the highest possible conversion rate. Will the lead generation firm produce a list of prospective customers that have previously purchased products or services in your industry? Will the lead generation firm build a list from scratch, or simply give you a ready-made list? If they are offering you a ready-made list, that’s probably not a good option – it may contain outdated information, and the firm probably hasn’t weeded out all of the sales prospects who said no. 

#3 Make Sure They are Compliant

There are laws in place in the US, such as the CAN-SPAM Act of 2003, that regulate solicitation emails, and you need to make sure your lead gen firm is in compliance with them. The act requires marketing emails to be sent from a legitimate email address, and the subject line must pertain to the body of the email, among other things. If you are trying to sell to customers overseas, especially in Europe, your led gen firm needs to be compliant with the European Union’s GDPR law that regulates marketing and solicitation emails.

Not complying with these laws can lead to stiff fines and other penalties against your business, so it’s crucial that you inquire about this.  

#4 Set Specific Expectations

Transparency is key, so you need to be as clear as possible about the volume of leads and what types of leads you expect from them. Ask them what their definition of a quality lead is and how much they charge for that, as the definition of a lead may differ from firm to firm. Some firms consider a lead to be anyone who makes contact with them about your business, while others consider a lead to be someone who is willing to set up a meeting with you. 

You need to also find out what emailing platform and email address the firm is reaching out to prospects with. Make sure the messages that prospective clients are responding with show up in your mailbox – not theirs. This way, you don’t risk missing out on legitimate leads because the firm forgot to forward them to you. Make this crystal clear with the lead gen firm before you sign a contract. 

Make Sure it Makes Sense for You

Lead gen firms can be very useful in increasing your sales and client base, but keep in mind they are not for every business. You need to conduct a careful analysis of your business to determine whether hiring such a firm will be cost-effective and make sense for what your business is trying to accomplish.

https://kapitus.com/wp-content/uploads/blog-lead-gen-company-2200.jpg 1468 2200 Vince Calio https://kapitus.com/wp-content/uploads/Kapitus_Logo_white-2-300x81-1-e1615929624763.png Vince Calio2022-05-06 05:00:222023-03-03 12:46:12Should You Hire a Lead Generation Firm?
Employee gives bags to person

Customer Loyalty: Action Loyalty and Tips to Achieve It

May 3, 2022/in Featured Stories, Sales and Marketing/by Brandon Wyson

Action loyalty, in short, is the grand culmination of cognitive, affective, and conative loyalty blasting in a crescendo emblematic of what most business owners would consider true loyalty. To achieve action loyalty with your customers is to reach a true synchronicity with the human who is patronizing your business; your business is a piece of their personality and a proud piece of their outward preferences. Forming action loyalty with your customers is perhaps one of the strongest forms of security for your business, as customers who exhibit action loyalty are the most likely to come back to your business out of respect for you and your brand.

What is Action Loyalty

In his study “Whence Consumer Loyalty,” Dr. Richard Oliver describes action loyalty as the “commitment to the action of rebuying.” And then in many more words, Dr. Oliver explains the key signs of action loyalty exhibited in consumers: action loyalty exists only in customers who have already bought/experienced your product and then actively choose your product over other choices in the same field. For example, A business is closed on Sunday. Then, on a Sunday, a customer arrives at your business seeking a product they have purchased from you in the past. Seeing that your business is closed, a consumer exhibiting action loyalty would then wait until your business is open again to purchase/experience your product specifically. Consumers who lack action loyalty to your brand would go somewhere else to get what they need on that same Sunday.

Action loyalty is exhibited both in the tendency to repurchase as well as the tendency to turn down alternatives to a certain product. Consumers with action loyalty would inconvenience themselves to patronize your business again.

Tips to Achieve Action Loyalty

 

Establish a Niche

Being that one of the key elements of action loyalty is the preference for your product over others in a similar space, it is essential that your products and brand do something all their own. Or more specifically, your customers need to earnestly believe there is something special inside your product or brand. More often than not, this means establishing and cultivating a niche within an existing industry. Your goal, in a way, is to find a subset of customers or a subset of an industry in which you can heavily gear your products, brand, and whole outward appearance toward catering.

A great example of niches lies in the music industry. Consider niches like genres; it’s all music, but a genre is a demarcation for a style or like-minded feeling. Every industry has its own genres. For example, bakeries that make specialty products or cater to specific crowds like vegans, pet owners, or people with food allergies are taking advantage of a niche. In the case of all three of these demographics, traditional bakeries likely do not suit their needs outright, so a bakery that goes out of its way to suit their needs is implicitly more attractive. Simply having the tools to cater to a niche, however, is only half the battle when seeking action loyalty; use all the tools in building cognitive, affective, and conative loyalty to build a customer relationship and action loyalty will hopefully come about as a result!

Know the Alternatives Your Customers May Seek

To have your brand chosen over alternatives, you must know those relevant alternatives inside and out. America is known for its variety of choices; this likely rings true for your specific industry as well as most other industries that would seek action loyalty in their customers. Take it upon yourself to follow the footsteps of how your potential customers may interact with your business. Then, see what other competitors show up on that same path. Whether simply Googling “pipe fitters near me” or genuinely interacting with your competitors to understand their unique appeal (or even pricing), consider that action loyalty usually follows common sense: if there is a near-identical product vastly undercutting the price of your own, you need to give customers the cognitive incentive to believe your product is superior.

Action Loyalty is Bound to Strong Brands

Distill the benefits of patronizing your business and associating with your brand into tangible, relatable terms. Sit down with trusted staff and management to find if you already have an existing trend among your customers you can emphasize. If not, go out of your way to develop one. Action loyalty requires customers to turn down alternatives in favor of your brand and product, so imagine this: a densely populated urban area has several competing grocery stores. Groceries aren’t a specialty service, so it is up to each store to build loyalty with their customers or lose them to very local competition. Each store ought to ask themselves “who already shops at my store” or “who do I want to shop at my store?” Whether you are the discount store, gourmet store, import store, health food store, or any other tangible style of store, having and holding that specific brand appeal is the basis of action loyalty. This example extends far beyond grocery stores and the general lesson is simple: action loyalty attaches itself to strong brands.

Routines and Rituals

Attaching and including your business in the daily routines and rituals of your customers is a veritable fast track to action loyalty. This is more specific (and emotionally bound) than the act of conative loyalty. Conative loyalty simply implies that customers return to your business after an initial transaction but intertwining with rituals and daily routines means that a business is part of a customer’s preferred daily path and routine.

Capitalizing on existing rituals and routines varies widely by industry; each industry has different expectations as to when their customers ought to come back. Consumer repair technicians, for example, aren’t likely to find their way into the daily or weekly routines of their customers… but that doesn’t mean they are wholly out of the action loyalty game. Our dentists and doctors are deeply intertwined with our semi-annual rituals. Take a note out of doctors’ and dentists’ books and find tactful ways to schedule future visits and check-ins with customers. At first, this is nothing more than conative loyalty. But over time and repeat positive experiences, this is one of the most likely paths to develop action loyalty.

Loyalty is Your North Star

Action loyalty is perhaps one of the most tangible examples that a customer prefers your brand over another. While cognitive loyalty is the basis of knowing a product is more premium, this says nothing about the customer’s individual preferences. On those preferences: affective loyalty means that a customer positively associates with your brand but says nothing about their willingness to patronize your business. And conative loyalty expresses, indeed, customers’ willingness to come back after an initial interaction but action loyalty trumps all: even if the customer is personally inconvenienced on the road to get your product or patronize your brand, they still do it.

https://kapitus.com/wp-content/uploads/iStock-1308840407.jpg 1466 2200 Brandon Wyson https://kapitus.com/wp-content/uploads/Kapitus_Logo_white-2-300x81-1-e1615929624763.png Brandon Wyson2022-05-03 17:24:332022-05-03 17:24:33Customer Loyalty: Action Loyalty and Tips to Achieve It
Woman gives woman tray

Customer Loyalty: What is Conative Loyalty & Tips to Achieve It

April 22, 2022/in Featured Stories, Sales and Marketing/by Brandon Wyson

When most people talk about “customer loyalty,” they often are actually talking about the more specific loyalty styling “conative loyalty” without knowing it. While there are several means to characterize “customer loyalty,” the loyalty most business owners desire is that which brings customers back to their business. Conative loyalty is an essential concept for business owners looking to improve customer retention, as understanding the concept is the basis of fine-tuning your operations to galvanize retention.

What is Conative Loyalty

Conative loyalty is the customer behavior of continuing to patronize your business. There is enough psychobabble to fill a book or two about conative loyalty, but the root of the concept is rather simple: consumers who willingly choose to go back to your business after a first visit are exhibiting conative loyalty. Unlike cognitive loyalty and affective loyalty, however, conative loyalty is shown in action rather than thoughts and opinions. Scoring conative loyalty with your customers is visible by the number of “regulars” and frequent customers or clients that patronize your business. So, the real game is not simply to achieve conative loyalty but also how to maintain it with your current customers.

 

Tips on How to Achieve (and Maintain) Conative Loyalty

 

Know Your Industry

The breadth of small business industries and styles means that there will never be a universal answer as to how to keep customers coming back; consumers don’t go to a coffee shop and a pool repair business for the same reasons. Maintaining conative loyalty and allowing new customers to form it will take some serious brainstorming between you and your trusted staff along with (believe it or not) feedback from your customers. Consider which of your products are most popular; in what ways can you change or improve that product to justify a reason for customers to make a return trip? Industries like auto maintenance or dentist offices that regularly schedule future appointments while customers are still in-house have it easy but that doesn’t mean the rest of the small businesses out there are out of luck.

Give your customers a tangible reason to come back to your business. For example, a coffee shop could encourage recycling by asking customers to bring their cups back from the last time they ordered for a discount on their next order. At its roots: use proof of purchase to incentivize future purchases. For industries where this would be more awkward (like the service industry) consider looking at your most popular products and seeing where it is possible to segment, separate, or improve existing services to necessitate a follow-up; just make sure this change doesn’t breed customer frustration.

Encourage Recommendations

Customer recommendations and reviews have an often-unspoken benefit beyond good press: customers who take the time to meaningfully explain their good experience are more likely to remember it themselves. Encouraging customers to write reviews online is a great means to allow those customers to feel out and articulate exactly what it is they like about your business. Then, they are more likely to remember those sentiments in the future! Online reviews, also, are not the only means to let customers speak their mind! Consider dedicating a space in your business to display hand-written, personal recommendations from your customers. Having their writing be physically on display in your business is another great means to build an emotional connection.

Customers who are enthusiastic enough about your business to write a review or recommendation outright are already exhibiting conative loyalty in spades but for the customers who haven’t reached that threshold yet, it’s up to you to convince them that your business is worth getting excited about!

Don’t Forget! Affective Loyalty Plays into Conative Loyalty

Affective loyalty, or the emotional loyalty held for a business, is likely the basis of building strong conative loyalty among your customers. Think about the concept of a “regular” in its own right: staff remember regulars’ orders, their names, and their preferences. That can only be formed through consistent, meaningful interactions with your best customers.

Go out of your way to train your staff about the importance of affective loyalty. You don’t have to sign them up for a marketing theory course; instead, get back to basics on the importance of even the simplest friendly inquiries when working with customers. The goal of your staff should almost always be to break the monotony and the base transactional undertones of doing business. If staff have a meaningful, memorable interaction with customers, you better believe they are on the first steps to building conative loyalty with your brand and business.

Reevaluate Business Pipeline Sections with Most Customer Interaction

Conative loyalty isn’t run by an off-and-on switch; every interaction your customers have with your business and brand will contribute to their perception of it, and by extension, their conative loyalty to your business. Think, then, about the elements of your business with the most customer or client interaction. Those elements must be maintained with unique precision to consistently impress (or, at the very least, simply satisfy) customers.

Conative loyalty is most likely to break down over repeated unsatisfactory experiences, so imagine the places where – in a worst-case scenario – your clients could be disappointed with their customer experience. If your business offers any kind of delivery services or meets customers at worksites, how long does it take for your employees to get there? If you don’t have a meaningful metric for this, that’s a good sign you should investigate transit times. How often do you train front-of-house staff about the importance of good customer service? This means more than sitting your staff down in the break room and saying, “be nice!”. If you want your staff to be memorable and pleasant to your customers, you need to make sure they are happy at work in the first place. This may require some introspection about your workplace culture at large.

Building a Conative Community

Conative loyalty is the eventual goal of just about all small businesses and for good reason; conative loyalty represents a customer’s genuine preference for your business over another and their willingness to act on that feeling. While cognitive loyalty in businesses is valuable, knowing that something is premium doesn’t mean that someone likes that thing or has any intention to patronize that business. And affective loyalty, as well, has its shortcomings: even people who like a brand don’t necessarily also have to go back and patronize those businesses. Conative loyalty is based on repeat action and is plainly visible in the faces of your regulars and most dedicated customers. In order to build that loyalty, then, consider the steps your business can take to both retain the regulars you already have and the steps you can take to excite and convince new customers to make your business part of their daily (where possible!) ritual.

https://kapitus.com/wp-content/uploads/iStock-1298224689.jpg 1468 2200 Brandon Wyson https://kapitus.com/wp-content/uploads/Kapitus_Logo_white-2-300x81-1-e1615929624763.png Brandon Wyson2022-04-22 03:43:172022-04-21 22:49:48Customer Loyalty: What is Conative Loyalty & Tips to Achieve It

The ABCs of Generating Sales Leads: it Doesn’t Have to be a Costly Process!

April 20, 2022/in Sales and Marketing/by Bernadette Abel

No business, large or small, can survive without customers, and in today’s crowded marketplace, generating sales leads can be one of the most daunting challenges small businesses face. According to Hubspot, generating sales leads and finding customers are atop the list of the greatest challenges small businesses face, especially in an age where millions of products are being advertised and sold in marketplaces such as Amazon and Etsy. 

Finding potential customers, however, can be expensive and time-consuming. Paying for a lead generation service or going through the costly, multi-step process of setting up a booth at an industry conference may not even get you the quality results you’re looking for. As an SMB owner, your best bet is to make sure you are executing the ABCs of lead generation. 

Here are some basic steps that you can take to generate sales leads in a cost-effective way so that you can always keep your sales pipeline full. 

Maximize Social Media

Nearly all the people who want to buy your products are online and on social media, and you need to do everything you can to try to connect with all of them. LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and TikTok are the most prominent platforms, but they all require different approaches to successfully connect to potential customers. 

Facebook does have business groups, but posts are generally personal in nature, while LinkedIn has a more austere business tone. Platforms such as TikTok and Instagram take a visual approach to attract followers that involves video streaming. There are plenty of free resources on the web, such as this informative article from SproutSocial on how to stand out on each platform. 

No matter which platform you’re using, it’s imperative to create a strong profile of your own that tells readers exactly what your business does and what makes it special, as well as letting viewers know what types of customers you’re looking for. Additionally, almost all social platforms have groups dedicated to what you do, so it’s important to make as many connections as possible, as well as monitor those groups and reach out to any posters that may seem like a potential customer. 

Scour Your Personal Network

Many small business owners don’t want to mix their personal lives with their business, and if you’re one of them, you’re making a big mistake. Your personal network of family members, friends, neighbors, current and past workmates as well as service professionals could be a hotbed for sales leads. 

Let those people in your life know that you’re seeking potential customers and be specific about your business and the types of customers you’re seeking. Even if the person is not directly a sales lead (and they probably won’t be), they could know of someone who is. Provide them with your contact information (if they don’t already have it) and ask them to forward it to anyone they might know who would be interested. Obviously, you want to approach them in a way that respects your friendship with them, but doing so isn’t as awkward as you may think, and you could be surprised at how many leads this technique could generate.

If at First You Don’t Succeed…

Sometimes when a customer doesn’t go through with a purchase, the customer may not be saying “no,” they might simply be saying “not now.” These include potential online customers who build a shopping cart but then don’t follow through with a purchase; or a customer in a physical store who asks questions about a particular product but doesn’t follow through with a sale. 

If you have a website, make sure it is set up in a way that compels them to give you their email addresses or other contact information. If your business operates out of a physical store, you could ask potential customers for their contact information in order to send them future sales or discount alerts. Another way to try and get contact information from them is to hold a contest in which they can only enter by giving you their contact information. For example, having potential customers throw their business cards in a jar and promising them a small prize if their card is drawn is often a successful technique. 

You may not make a sale right away, but if you’re persistent in contacting them with offers and alerts for your product, your efforts may very well pay off at some point down the line. 

Write Informative Blogs and Market Them

Adding a blog to your website will bring you a multitude of benefits, provided that you follow up with content marketing. You can scour social media and the web for topics in your industry that may interest your customers, then write short pieces offering them advice on how to solve certain problems, for example. This will get viewers to see you as an expert in your industry and perhaps an influencer. 

Of course, good articles won’t do you much good unless you engage in content marketing. Posting your articles to relevant groups on various social media platforms, for example, will get you some hits from readers who could be potential customers. If they respond with commentary on your articles, only allow them to do so if they provide their email addresses. If you’re not up on the latest content marketing strategies, you can get some free advice on the internet, such as Hubspot Academy’s free course on content marketing. 

Additionally, if you’re chock full of article ideas but creative writing isn’t your thing, there are several online services such as this one from Crowd Content, which allow you to hire an experienced freelance writer for a small fee. 

Host Webinars

Blog content is important in establishing yourself as an expert, but it often is a one-way street that doesn’t allow for interactive experiences with your potential customers. One way to solve this problem is to host webinars that allow users to comment and provide feedback on what you’re saying. Advertise a webinar on your website and on social media platforms, and have users register for it by providing their contact details. Pick an interesting topic and create a script on what you want potential customers to know. If you’re unsure of how to create a webinar, there are plenty of software packages out there that make it easy, such as Zoom Video Webinar and Zoho Meeting.

Network, Network, Network…

One of the best ways to find potential sales leads is to attend networking events, such as industry conferences, that are relevant to your industry so you can meet future customers face to face. Scour the internet and social media for networking events that seem like places where you’ll find potential customers. Sites such as Meetup.com and Eventbrite.com offer listings of events in your general area that may prove valuable to your business. Participation at these events is often free. 

When you go to these events, keep in mind that attendees probably don’t want to hear heavy sales pitches, so it’s important to approach people in a friendly, conversational manner. Go to these events armed with your business cards, grab a drink and have fun meeting new people!

Ask Your Current Customers for Referrals

Your current customers are great sources for sales leads because they already know and trust you. One way to encourage them to refer potential new customers to you is to offer them a heavy discount on your products or services if they do refer a new customer to you. That way, you can achieve the ultimate win-win by landing both a repeat and new customer simultaneously. 

Keep at it

When drumming up new sales leads, it’s important to be patient, as this effort might be slow at first and requires time and effort. Don’t get discouraged, however, as implementing one or all of the above strategies could pay off in a big way over time and keep your business going in the future. 

https://kapitus.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/sales-meeting-1.jpg 1069 1900 Bernadette Abel https://kapitus.com/wp-content/uploads/Kapitus_Logo_white-2-300x81-1-e1615929624763.png Bernadette Abel2022-04-20 14:20:202023-03-16 13:37:18The ABCs of Generating Sales Leads: it Doesn’t Have to be a Costly Process!
magnet with rings and orb-bound folks

Customer Loyalty: What is Affective Loyalty & Tips to Achieve It

April 18, 2022/in Sales and Marketing/by Brandon Wyson

Loyalty can stem from several avenues of thought. While a consumer may be loyal to a company because of their belief that the company’s products are high-quality, that isn’t the sole means to build a loyal customer base. Enter “Affective Loyalty,” the second of Dr. Richard Oliver’s four stylings of consumer loyalty. While cognitive loyalty affirms the importance of loyalty through premium services, or simply the appearance of them, affective loyalty deals more so with the emotional background of loyalty; instead of just knowing the greatness of your brand, customers can also feel that greatness.

What is Affective Loyalty?

Affective loyalty occurs when a consumer truly likes your company. In that way, affective loyalty occurs in customers who have been uniquely affected by your business or brand. This, then, is much more difficult to centralize compared to cognitive loyalty. Case in point, consider Apple and American Express, the two key examples of brands with lasting cognitive loyalty in our previous article. Even though these brands are commonly known for selling high-quality products, that doesn’t mean that consumers necessarily like those products or that brand.

Small businesses have a leg up compared to their corporate counterparts when seeking consumer affective loyalty. While consumers may like the prices at big-name department stores, when was the last time you saw someone walking down the street wearing a Wal-Mart shirt who wasn’t walking to work? Affective loyalty is the underlying energy that gets a person to wear a branded shirt. People are OK with being seen out in the world with your logo – which likely also accounts for a bit of pride in being a patron to your business.

Affective loyalty is a gut feeling from consumers as to whether your business has their best interests in mind or are truly working on their behalf. Consumers can like something for near-infinite reasons, making affective loyalty the white whale for marketing teams and boardrooms worldwide. Two words frequently attached to affective loyalty are “satisfaction” and “emotion,” both of which are essential to forming affective loyalty among your customers.

Tips for Achieving Affective Loyalty

 

Be Yourself (No Matter What They Say!)

A sure-fire way to lose affective loyalty is to appear flippant or like a trend chaser. Think in the context of personal relationships; people can easily emotionally read when someone is altering their personality to please someone else. This rule remains true in business.

For a practical example, consider Chicago’s most foul-mouthed hotdog eatery: The Weiner Circle. The Weiner Circle stands in boastful opposition to every so-called rule of building affective loyalty. Customers can expect to be insulted and hurried along when buying hotdogs… but they’ve been coming back for decades. Customers can likely expect a tasty hotdog when they go to The Weiner Circle but that obviously isn’t the only reason the business is successful. The Weiner Circle has a tangible brand which consumers can emphatically like or dislike. While the Weiner Circle likely has its detractors, consider just as well that those detractors know and remember the business even if they won’t likely be customers.

Your goal as a business should be to cultivate a brand and a feeling for your business that kindles an emotional connection with your customers. “Cultivate,” however, doesn’t mean cull your current customers if you already have a company off the ground. Take the existing elements that excite and satisfy your customers and maximize them. While this may sound abstract (and it certainly is!) making your brand likable isn’t as simple as flipping a switch; if it was, every business would.

Involve Your Current Customers

If you are already running a business, there is a pretty good chance you have existing there are already customers who exhibit some level of affective loyalty for your business or brand. Take it upon yourself to find out why. Customers can like a business for more reasons than cheap prices, so find out why your customers choose you over the other businesses that could have suited their needs.

In this case, think of a hardware store operating in an area with big-name competitors nearby. It is near impossible to beat the prices of warehouse stores that buy in bulk to the tune of multiple million dollars a month, so how is it possible for a business to not only exist in that environment but also be genuinely liked by the customers who give their business to the store? Perhaps the staff is especially personable and knowledgeable about repair jobs. Perhaps, even if they can’t beat the prices of corporate competitors, the hardware store may offer to special order specialty parts for customers. Maybe it’s as simple as that the location and organization of the store is better than the warehouse stores. The only way to know, however, is to investigate.

While a business owner can speculate that any number of things bring customers into their store, customers are the only ones who can genuinely say why. Consider opening avenues for your customers to give feedback directly to your business. While running an online survey or other digital outreach options can give you a lot of results, surveys can lead to mixed bags in very small sample sizes. If you want your customers to genuinely like your brand, you ought to speak to them upfront. By being direct with your customers, you can expect more direct (and helpful) responses.

Community Involvement and Philanthropy

Transactions by their nature aren’t a good means to build an emotional connection with your customers. Rather, what happens in between transactions is likely the best place to cultivate affective loyalty. If your business has a brick-and-mortar location, put effort into getting involved in that local community. Call your town or city hall and see if there are any opportunities for your business to volunteer or donate to a community initiative. If your business is in a city with a community board, ask if your business can cater or sponsor the catering for an upcoming meeting. See, if customers think that their image of “good” is the same as yours, they are much closer to forming an emotional (and affective) connection to your business.

Consider making an easily digestible and brand-friendly act of philanthropy on a regular basis. A great example, in this case, is businesses in the food industry; restaurants and markets can offer to donate their extra food to a shelter, or in the case of restaurants, every time a customer orders a specialty dish, the dish’s equivalent ingredients are donated to a food bank. The purpose of this, of course, is to connect your business and brand with an act of goodwill that will make customers proud to patronize your business, and by extension, make them feel they are doing good.

Tempered Expectations and Informed Results

Being that affective loyalty is an emotional gauge, the gestures you make in your community will not resonate with everyone who could become your client or customers. That, however, ought not be your goal. Affective loyalty is best maintained in proportions: it is far more favorable to have several dozen dedicated customers with high affective loyalty compared to a larger customer base with general apathy for your business; the moment something more convenient or emotionally satisfying comes to oppose you, consider those customers gone.

Like many brand and marketing exercises, growing affective loyalty for your business doesn’t have a universal “how to” list. Instead, learning more about the concept allows business owners to tweak their operations and outreach with a new, informed perspective. So, with your scanner tuned to “affective loyalty,” take an outsider’s look at your business structure and consider new ways to not just serve your customers, but leave them satisfied.

https://kapitus.com/wp-content/uploads/iStock-1195869103.jpg 1320 2200 Brandon Wyson https://kapitus.com/wp-content/uploads/Kapitus_Logo_white-2-300x81-1-e1615929624763.png Brandon Wyson2022-04-18 15:47:232022-04-18 15:47:23Customer Loyalty: What is Affective Loyalty & Tips to Achieve It
Page 1 of 8123›»

LATEST FROM KAPITUS

  • Is Your Bank at Risk of Failing? These are the Signs You Should Look For
  • Legislative Proposals Small Businesses Should Worry About in 2023
  • The Pros and Cons of Your Business Taking on Private Investors
  • Obtaining a Surety Bond to Land a Federal Contract
  • Small Businesses Give Their 2023 Predictions

Subscribe To Our Blog For More Tips On How To Grow Your Business

Categories

  • Accounting & Taxes
  • Alternative Financing
  • Business Expansion
  • Business Loans
  • Business Productivity
  • Business Productivity
  • Business Software & Cybersecurity
  • Cash Flow Management
  • Claim Your Corner of the Internet
  • Company News
  • Featured Stories
  • Financing
  • Human Resources
  • Industry Challenges
  • Leadership
  • Legal
  • Living Your Best SBO Life
  • Making Her Mark – Influential Women Business Owners
  • Monthly Must Reads
  • News
  • Operations
  • Personal
  • Raising Capital
  • Recruitment
  • Risk Management
  • Sales and Marketing
  • Tax Center
  • Tax Legislation
  • Technology
  • Technology Center
  • Uncategorized

About Us

  • Media Center
  • Team
  • Careers
  • Events
  • Success Stories
  • The Kapitus Difference
  • Developer Documentation
  • Blog
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms of Use

Products

  • Revenue Based Financing
  • Helix® Healthcare Financing
  • Business Loans
  • SBA Loans
  • Line of Credit
  • Invoice Factoring
  • Equipment Financing
  • Purchase Order Financing
  • Concierge Services
  • Resource Center

Contact Us

  • (800) 780-7133
  • Email Us

Signup For Our Newsletter

Copyright 2023 Strategic Funding Source, Inc. All rights reserved. Kapitus and the Kapitus logo are registered trademarks of Strategic Funding Source, Inc.
  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Youtube
Scroll to top

This site uses cookies to store information on your computer. Some are essential to make our site work properly; others help us improve the user experience. We encourage you to read Kapitus’s Privacy Policy to learn more about how we use cookies and how we may collect and use visitor data. By continuing to use this site, you consent to the placement of these cookies

OK

Cookie and Privacy Settings



Privacy Policy

This site uses cookies to store information on your computer. Some are essential to make our site work properly; others help us improve the user experience. We encourage you to read Kapitus’s Privacy Policy to learn more about how we use cookies and how we may collect and use visitor data. By continuing to use this site, you consent to the placement of these cookies

Step 1 of 4 - Tell us about you

25%
  • Sign up for the Kapitus Partner Program!

  • Sign up for the Kapitus Partner Program!

  • Sign up for the Kapitus Partner Program!

  • Sign up for the Kapitus Partner Program!

Step 1 of 10 - TELL US ABOUT YOUR PRIMARY FINANCING NEED

10%
  • Find the right financing product for you.

    Answer a few questions and we’ll match you with the best product based on your needs and current situations.

  • 1. Answer a few questions. You let us know some basic information about your financing needs, so we can find a match.
    2. See your financing matches. You'll get matched with up to four financing options based on your answers.
    3. Apply for financing. You can apply for all of your financing options by completing one simple application and providing a few documents.
    4. Get an Advisor: You have the option to be assigned a financing specialist to help guide you through the application process.
    If you are looking to determine the best financing option for you, our matching tool streamlines the process and arms you with information that you can use before you apply. To match you with your best options, we ask you to answer a series of basic questions about your existing and future needs, current financial health, and your financing preferences – including amount to be financed, ideal terms and financing urgency. Our system then finds you up to four financing options to fit your needs. Once you’re matched, you can expect to be contacted by one of our financing specialists to help you navigate the application and selection processes.
  • Find your financing match


  • Each financing product has its own minimum and maximum requirements around the amount of money that can be acquired through that option.
  • Find your financing match



    • Business Accountants
    • Marketing & PR Agencies
    • Commercial Cleaning Companies
    • Printers
    • Human Resource & Payroll Firms
    • Office Supplies Organizations
    • Salons/Spas
    • Gyms & Other Workout Studios
    • Pet Services Companies
    • Personal Accountants
    • Home Cleaning Companies
    • Residential Landscaping
  • There are financing options created to meet the specific needs of particular industries.
  • Find your financing match

  • Thank you for reaching out to Kapitus. Unfortunately, our financing products are only available for existing businesses and we will not be able to help you at this time.


  • The amount of time your business has been in operation is a deciding factor in the type of financing options available to you.
  • Find your financing match


  • Each financing product has its own minimum requirement for the amount of revenue being brought into a business on either a monthly or an annual basis. In addition, your monthly and/or annual revenue can dictate the length and term on your financing option.
  • Find your financing match


  • Each financing product offers different payback lengths and terms.
  • Find your financing match


  • Each financing product has different paperwork and underwriting processes. As a result, the amount of time it takes to get approved for one type of financing over another can vary significantly.
  • Find your financing match

  • Find your financing match


  • There are financing options for every credit type, however your personal credit score will determine your eligibility for each financing type.
  • We’re finding your match

"*" indicates required fields

Whether you want to learn more about our financing options, are interested in becoming a partner or just have a general question, we’re here to help! Simply fill out the form below and we’ll get it directly into the inbox of the right person.
This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.