Loyalty Blogs

A company’s growth is mainly because of its loyal and long-time customers! Loyal customers are the ones that return to brands and spend 31% more than new customers. The research also says even a minimum of a 5% increase in customer retention can lead to a 25% increase in profit. However, winning customer loyalty is not child’s play, especially in this competitive business era.

To cultivate loyalty, it is essential to get personal with your customers. Creating a sense of belonging can be a great help to build brand loyalty among customers. Let’s find out how the right Customer Loyalty Software Solution can help your business make customers feel like they belong.

Reasons Why Creating a Sense of Belonging among Customers is Important

Building a sense of belongingness can help brands open up new opportunities and build lasting loyalty with increased lifetime value. To help you understand what it takes to build successful B2B Loyalty Programs, brands must focus to make their customers feel like they belong.

Here are some of the reasons why brands must focus on creating a sense of belonging among customers-

– Customers Love to Belong

Everyone including your customers wants that belongingness and to be a part of something that is important, powerful, and successful. When a customer loves a brand, there can be many reasons like products/services quality, the brand is aspirational; the brand’s values align with your customers, etc. However, the most important reason why customers choose one brand over others is that they make them feel like they belong.

– Customers are subject to social identity theory

Yes, your customers are subject to social identity theory, which means we including customers tend to boost self-esteem based on the social groups we belong to. In the paper published by renowned social psychologist Henri Tajfel says that “…the individual’s self-concept is not only a function of personal characteristics but also of membership in various groups (e.g., gender, race, religion) and other social categories.”

This means a person’s self-concept depends on the extent to which he considers himself as belonging or not belonging to different categories.

– Social Identity Creates a Sense of Belonging

Humans have the tendency to belong to one or more groups & derive meaning from those respective memberships. Groups can be based on different categories such as race & gender. However, people tend to identify themselves primarily based on their membership in one major group.

For instance, a family that supports the Democratic Party for ages will have children that support the same. It is obvious where loyalties lie.

– People consider Belonging as one basic psychological need

A sense of belongingness is one of the most important psychological aspects that people have apart from their basic survival needs (food, water, sleep, etc.) It is true that belonging is so fundamental and important that it is considered as one of the 3 core psychological needs with autonomy and relatedness. People who suffer from depression and anxiety are the ones who don’t feel like they belong.

– Make Loyal Customers feel Appreciated

Ensure that your brand acknowledges your best customers as your tribe’s members to build loyalty. Let them know how special they are and reward them with the right set of rewards. Make use of status tiers to bring more sense of belonging and offer access to exclusive services and products, special invites for events, and personalization techniques by understanding your customers as individuals with varied needs.

– Make Your Employees Get a Sense of Belonging

Providing customers as well as your employees the best with a sense of belonging is powerful to generate long-term loyalty to your brand. People who feel like they belong in their workplace are more likely to stay engaged in their job profiles and would be ready to offer new opportunities.

Companies that are successful are the ones who are able to retain their top talents with a great reward sense along with a sense of belonging, which makes them feel connected and retain them longer.

Final Takeaways

Hopefully, you must be aware of the significance of loyal customers and the need to make your customers feel like they belong, which is essential to retain them for a long time. A sense of belonging can reap immense benefits by keeping customers more engaged in their businesses & increasing sales.

Novus is a renowned Loyalty Program Platform Provider that helps different brands across the globe to build customized loyalty programs enabling them to retain customers for a long time. If you are planning to boost loyalty with a new loyalty program or with the upgrade of an existing one, you can connect with our experts to help your brand provide customers with a sense of belonging to generate long-term brand loyalty.