When a VIP Customer Changes

As a brand grows, a possible KPI involves nurturing customers in a way that encourages repeat and/or basket-building behavior. From a business POV, this makes sense, is almost expected and positive. At this point, the retention strategy becomes a numbers game.?

I invite you to challenge this. Yes, keep with the data, but start looking at ways to turn subjective moments into objective data points.?

How are you classifying current repeat customers? Better yet, how are you understanding when a repeat customer starts to have a negative experience or starts to behave in a different way? What is the way in which you prepare for the unexpected – when a loyal customer’s behavior starts to pivot.?

Define how you identify and classify your Loyal, VIP, Repeat Purchasers.

To start, look at purchasing behavior, digital engagement, the data that is available at the fingertips. Are you able to identify a cohort and/or multiple cohorts based on what you may call positive triggers or brand sentiment? This starting place evolves as additional touch points enter, but starting first with a clear definition of how to identify a cohort, and disseminating to the rest of the organization, will be step one.

Identify Cohort within Customer Experience

Once a cohort is defined, start to look at how you can label this cohort across data sets, as well as the main database source. Start to expose this information across teams, such as Marketing, IT, Data Science and Customer Experience. Collectively as an organization, this cohort will become tracked and viewed across all touchpoints in the purchasing and brand marketing lifecycle.?

Proactively Addressing Intervention

Once a cohort’s unique identifier comes across those channels, brands start to understand the type of customer calling into CX teams, sliding into the DMs with organic social teams, and replying to the marketing emails from the brand marketing teams (and on the flipside, who is silent and not engaging).

Caveat: How are you making your brand approachable? Are you allowing customers to reach out to your brand in multiple ways? If so, encourage your customers to interact with your brand, invite them to speak up and partner in the brand evolution.

Through this mapping of information, brands start to understand when and how certain cohorts of customers may engage or react to anything and everything. We can save the discussion on how to make that “anything and everything” actionable in another newsletter. Step 1 is to understand who is starting to engage and if Loyal, VIP, High Repeat customers are talking to you on a regular basis, how are you thanking them for all of this feedback? Afterall, feedback is a gift. Let’s return the favor to our customers.