The best marketing strategy is a satisfied customer

This is a post for businesses that take quality seriously. It is necessary to start on the basis of this essential point. If yours is one of those businesses that prefers to spend on advertising what it does not invest in product or service quality, it would be best if you didn’t bother reading any further.

For a customer to be satisfied, the first step is for the offer to have met, or exceeded, all their expectations. On that solid basis, you can then expect customers to give positive feedback on their consumer experience.

According to recent studies, each happy customer tells his/her story to 4 to 6 people, while a dissatisfied one will voice that dissatisfaction to between 9 and 15 people. The difference in the two figures is, shall we say, a matter of psychology: rewarding experiences tend to be experienced introspectively, unlike negative ones, which usually provoke outbursts of discontent.

Unfortunately for some businesses, customers are more likely to complain about bad service than they are to express how happy they were with a particular transaction. That’s why dissatisfied customers are so dangerous to a venture’s reputation.

Users who are satisfied, however, exert a decisive influence in their personal sphere, as they recommend the brand to their friends or acquaintances, who are encouraged to try for themselves based on the review. As social beings, we need such testimonials to validate our decisions, especially when coming from someone we trust. In fact, 92% of consumers base their purchasing decisions on the opinions of friends and family; a statistic that clearly reveals how important word-of-mouth marketing still is, even in times when social networks reign supreme.

Regardless of the channels through which the customer makes his or her recommendations, each user who rates your offers or services is a kind of brand ambassador, without the need to be a recognized “influencer.” To achieve this, it is essential that the business has established a solid and trustworthy relationship with that user, either in everyday life or through customer service, a very useful tool for winning over consumers. And this involves not only winning them over with good service, but also compensating them in case something goes wrong. Retaining a customer and keeping them satisfied is the true triumph of any enterprise.

If a business can also get consumers to share their experiences with other potential customers, whether on their block, on social networks or in the many digital spaces that are so fashionable today, it will undoubtedly have increased the value of its brand.