As a business owner or manager, you know that your blood and sweat have gone into designing and building that perfect product or service. Keeping your business alive and running has been challenging and ever-demanding. Acquiring new customers has been expensive and so time-consuming that It becomes even more critical to maintain hawk-eyed attention to existing customers. It is so crucial to converting our buyers into loyal brand advocates.

So here are five proven strategies you should NOT do to keep your customers loyal to you and also be your flagbearers and refer you:

1.    Be COMPLACENT in customer service

A brand could just crash if the customers are not feeling valued and appreciated. Providing the consumer with just the product or service and not going above and beyond their expectations is an easy recipe for losing their trust and association with the brand.

As a business owner, what you can’t afford is to be complacent in issue handling, responding to inquiries, being empathetic, and offering personalized treatment.

2.    NEGLECT your loyal customers

Every relationship needs acknowledgment or appreciation for it to work. Not rewarding your customers, who are appreciative of your offerings and go the extra mile to refer you further, is a subtle way of pushing them away. Little encouragement goes a long way in making their return to your business and referring to their friends and families.

Don’t let your proactive, engaged customers’ effort go neglected, and find creative ways to thank them for their advocacy. Some of the most common ways are rewarding them with exclusive discounts, referral bonuses, or special perks.

3. DON’T SEEK just TELL your customer

Being reactive to your customer, defending your mistakes, always telling how your product or service is the best in the market, and not giving appropriate time and space to let your customer talk or tell their side of the story is undoubtedly the easiest way possible to make them feel unwanted and experience negative emotions in their interactions with your brand.

Customer centricity is a culture every business needs to adopt! All it takes is to make it easy and relevant for your customers to share their thoughts, experiences, and opinions on your brand. Use the insights from their inputs to make improvements in your business and loop it back with them to ascertain they are heard and that they matter!

4. NO HUMAN connection

The biggest myth in customer handling is to treat them like Gods or kings. This is a simple way to distance them and dehumanize your relationship. It becomes more of doing what they demand and being a yes man rather than being transparent and authentic in your communications.

When you connect with your target audience emotionally, at a deeper level, you create an environment of open communication and understand their emotional needs, expectations, or behaviors. Don’t shy away from sharing your company story, values, and culture and reflecting on your human side. 

4. Ghost your customers

Only focusing on the primary offering and making it look good enough at the surface to attract a buyer without any underlying work on post-sales engagement is a great beginning to a quick end of any enterprise. Not keeping in touch with your customers and missing out on opportunities to engage is only going to make it so easy for customers to forget the brand and in some cases make them share their frustrations or problems in public domains. This could be so detrimental to business growth and calls for efforts on rebranding.

It is so easy to stay top of mind with your customers by connecting with them on social media, emails, and calls and not ghosting.  Omni channel presence and offering them relevant content, promotions, or updates are key to making them engage with your brand effortlessly and keep coming back to you for more.

Building strong relationships with your customers is key to converting them into your advocates and having them spread the word about your business. Remember, it's not just about selling products or services – it's about creating meaningful experiences.