What exactly is customer loyalty?
The act of continually favoring a company’s goods and services above those of its competitors is known as customer loyalty. Customers who are devoted to one business are less susceptible to availability or pricing fluctuations. They would rather spend more money and get the same high-quality service and goods they have come to expect.
When a business continually meets and exceeds customers’ expectations, it gains their loyalty. According to different research by Rare Consulting, 83% of consumers responded that trust was the basis for their brand loyalty. In other words, liking and being able to trust a product or brand are key components of loyalty. Customers are more likely to make another purchase in the future if they feel confident doing business with a company.
Why is client loyalty crucial for Dental Practice?
The significance of client loyalty affects practically all key company metrics. Without satisfied patients who keep visiting you whenever they suffer from a toothache, your dental practice won’t last. As we’ll see below, acquiring new patients is generally harder, and they don’t typically spend as much as devoted, recurring customers do. The success of a dental practice depends on retaining patients. This is the reason why making quick money doesn’t work. Customers who are dependable to your business help you expand and maintain high revenues.
Greater client loyalty aids business expansion
While it goes without saying that repeated patients who tend to visit your clinic and as a result spend more money are beneficial for business, loyal consumers also reap other, less evident advantages.
Similar to the traditional metaphor of the leaky bucket. Think of a dental practice as a bucket. Patients enter and fill the bucket to the brim. A profitable dental practice has a full bucket of patients.
Imagine, though, that the bucket has a hole in it. Clientele that poured into the bucket begins to trickle out of the hole. Churn is the term for patient loss, and it significantly hinders corporate growth. Even if you can find a way to fill the bucket more quickly, you will still be losing worthwhile patients.
Fixing the problem (or enhancing customer retention) entails keeping more patients on board. A dental practice’s profits grow by 25%–95% for every 5% increase in patient retention.
Churn wouldn’t be such a big concern if it cost the same to replace the clients lost due to the leak. Unfortunately, it costs significantly more to bring in new clients than it does to keep selling to the same ones. According to estimates, converting new consumers will cost five times as much as doing so with current ones.
Loyal customers facilitate business expansion.
Devoted patients also refer to their friends and family. If you’re wondering if referrals are really that crucial to your financial line, take a look at these statistics from Referral Sasquatch:
New referral clients have a lifetime value that is 16% higher than non-referral consumers. The reason for this is probably that they already have a favorable image of the company, and friends are more likely to suggest “perfect fit customers” or those who they are certain will get something from your good or service.
83% of US internet consumers are influenced by social media posts when making decisions.
B2B businesses with recommendations have conversion rates that are 70% higher.
Your lead stream can grow thanks to all those devoted patients.
Having Loyal Customers Means Higher Profits
A dental clinic needs to have more revenue than expenses to operate. If it costs $100 to turn a prospect into a patient, they must spend at least that amount with your company before you break even. The Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) will frequently compromise expenses for software, sales labor, and marketing spending. These expenses add up: According to Bain & Company, the majority of firms need to keep clients for at least 12 to 18 months to recover their acquisition costs. Customer loyalty is not only a good notion; it is essential to the survival of the company.
In fact, one of the best investments a dental practice can make is to focus resources on enhancing client loyalty. The earnings impact of a 2% improvement in customer retention is equivalent to a 10% drop in operational costs. (On the Edge of Chaos’ Emmet Murphy and Mark Murphy are in charge.) Spend money on retaining clients instead of cutting back on them because the benefits outweigh the costs.
Finally, recurring consumers are frequently the most lucrative. According to McKinsey, returning dental e-commerce customers spend more than twice as much as new ones ($52.50 on average for repeat customers against $24.50 ). By upselling to current patients and adding more value as the account expands, SaaS organizations can experience a similar gain.
Increased profitability and overall business performance are the result of putting a strong emphasis on the value of client loyalty.
Customer loyalty and superior customer service
Can the customer service staff significantly contribute to increasing client loyalty? Absolutely.
Patients adore transacting with businesses that provide excellent customer service. They are more likely to visit you rather than someone else as they know they’ll be at ease by your outstanding service. As a result, always bear in mind that dental practices that provide excellent customer service will have greater customer loyalty and experience fewer client losses as a result of pricing competitors.
Teams that provide customer service are also crucial in reducing disloyalty. Eighty-nine percent of respondents who had recently changed from one business to its competitors cited bad service as the reason for their decision in the Harris Interactive survey. We frequently discuss how high-effort experiences might turn customers away.
Teams in customer service that track customer effort scores can significantly reduce the amount of friction and boost customer loyalty.
While loyal customers aren’t always the outcome of customer satisfaction, dissatisfaction almost surely does.
Building trust, however, is a process that takes time and effort. Building trust is a labor-intensive process that calls for persistence, consistency, and reliable performance. Only then will you have a brand that will encourage repeat business, and Spark Dental Marketing is here to assist you and provide all such outcomes?
