How Creating Raving Fans Helps Grow Your Small Business

4 min read

Why Turning Your Best Customers into Fans of Your Local Business Is the Best Decision You Can Make

 

Every company anticipates and tries to meet customer needs to improve its reputation and bolster growth.

 

Customer service and feedback, especially via customer reviews and on social media, impacts the success of the company.

 

The more your customers fall in love with your local business and give you positive feedback, the more they will rave about you to their friends and family to bring in more sales for you.  

 

Negative reviews often damage a brand's reputation. Conversely, positive customer reviews help promote your brand.

 

Therefore, gaining loyal supporters out of your anchor customers is extremely important.

 

So how exactly do you create a raving fan? What are the benefits of your best customers supporting you and how can you leverage those benefits to grow your small business?

 

In this article, I will highlight the importance of raving fans and a few key points on how to create raving fans with the help of reputation marketing.

 

What Is a Raving Fan?

 

World-famous business consultant Ken Blanchard coined the term to describe customers who are so overwhelmed and satisfied by a company’s customer service that they become fans of it.

 

As a result, they share their experience with others, promoting the company and its services. 

 

Offering the best customer service is a great way to create raving fans.

 

Inspirational raving fan quotes can help you understand the significance of raving fans and motivate your employees to seek an 11-star review and not just a 5-star review.

 

With raving fans, your customers do the marketing for you by giving you more exposure.

 

This is how reputation marketing—using your company’s positive reputation to promote yourself—works, and the creation of raving fans is a pillar of it.

 

Why Creating Raving Fans Is Important for Small Businesses

 

Once you reach a certain scale in your small business, you’ll hire more employees to grow it. Then you can spend more time working on the larger aspects of the business.

 

Creating raving fans is a great way for SMB owners to try to grow their business.

 

Creating raving fans helps small businesses because you can get customer reviews, increase sales, improve your reputation and reduce costs.

 

Let’s break down these points by highlighting the importance of creating raving fans for small businesses.

 

1. Leveraging Reviews

 

What is one reason why customer service is important? Simply put, customer service impacts your bottom line.

 

For instance, when you overwhelm raving fans with customer service, they will write positive reviews and share their experience with others.

 

When those people learn about your customer service and unique benefits, they might become raving fans as well.

 

With great customer service, you can create a cascade of positive reviews in the process to support your brand and help you grow it.

 

With more positive reviews, you’ll have a great opportunity to use them as part of your strategy for reputation marketing.

 

What is reputation marketing? It’s all about taking indicators of your great company reputation, like customer reviews, and using them to market your business.

 

This means raving fans are a gift that keeps on giving!

 

2. Increasing Revenue

 

Since raving fans will be loyal customers, they will prefer buying from you, increasing your overall revenue.

 

With increased revenue, you may achieve economies of scale. Due to your better pricing or quality of service, you can sell a premium service at a lower price and more sales.

 

Therefore, one of the many benefits of raving fans is that they can help carry your brand and keep the sales going.

 

3. Improving Reputation

 

Raving fans support you by spreading the word. They will tell their friends and families about your products and services and provide feedback that will help you improve your business.

 

All of these benefits improve your company’s reputation as the top service provider in your region, helping you better direct your marketing efforts and implement strategies for more sales.

 

4. Cutting Down Online Marketing Costs

 

Raving fans save effort and costs of promoting your brand on social media or other websites to reach more people. Instead, raving fans will help you to acquire customers organically.

 

They will share your content and post about your brand to promote it so you can spend more time focusing on your business.

 

What Is the Secret to Creating Raving Fans? 

 

The primary strategy for creating raving fans is customer service skills.

 

If a company looks after a customer’s needs like no one else, it will always be at an advantage. It is not about being unique, but about providing more value than anyone else.

 

The secret to create raving fans is customer service, so let us understand more about what exceptional customer service looks like.

 

What Is Exceptional Customer Service?

 

We often read about poor customer service incidents. These incidents may damage the reputation of any business.

 

Due to the lofty expectations of most customers, even if the customer service is mediocre, customers won’t engage with the brand again.

 

This is why it’s important for small businesses to understand how to deliver great customer service.

 

Exceptional customer service means catering to the customers’ needs quickly and respectfully.

 

When you give your customers what they expect, and then a little more, you are en route to creating raving fans.

 

Exceptional customer service is when you go "above and beyond" by giving your customer more than what they desire.

 

It is essential to know what customers want by building a healthy relationship with them, so let’s discover how you can build strong relationships with your customers to create raving fans.

 

Targeting the Right Audience Based on Your Company Values

 

Once you have a specific company value, you will understand the type of customers who will best suit your brand and become raving fans.

 

Determining your target audience will help you connect with the right people and they will resonate with what you stand for and believe in.

 

Getting to Know Your Customers and Ask for Their Opinions

 

Once a target audience is set, keep asking them for feedback. It will strengthen your company values and drive more sales due to increasing customer satisfaction.

 

Moreover, you will be able to avoid unnecessary disruptions or complaints. This is a significant aspect of creating raving fans.

 

Delivering More Than You Promise

 

By promoting your services and rewarding your best customers, you will have raving fans who will always choose you first.

 

You can use customer data to identify frequent customers and let them know how special they are. In this way, you'll gain new raving fans while losing none.

 

Create Raving Fans With Amazing Customer Service and Reputation Marketing

 

Creating raving fans is crucial for your business.

 

With raving fans, your small business can improve its reputation to leverage reputation marketing, optimize business costs and, ultimately, increase sales!

 

One of the best ways to create raving fans is by leveraging NiceJob’s reputation marketing software to help you get more reviews.

 

With more positive reviews, you can attract new customers who can become new raving fans and the cycle for growing your business can skyrocket!