How To Create Your Customer VIP Club

When you set up formal reward programs, essentially what you are doing is setting up a VIP club for your business. You are showing customers that they are important to your business and demonstrating this by giving them special rewards that are exclusive to them. Now some people are uncomfortable with this concept. They feel like they are bribing clients to give them referrals. But I can promise you your customers will love it. Remember that these are customers that are buying from you anyway. All you are doing is implementing a program that shows them how important they are to you by saying thank you.

Here are a few tips to help you set up a successful customer VIP club:

Create Some Prestige

You want to create an air of prestige, so give your customer referral programme a special name. Something like: The Ambassadors’ Club; The Privilege Club; or the VIP Club. Make sure that the name is something that makes clients feel important. The more important they feel, the more likely they are to actively participate in your customer referral and loyalty programme.

Play Open Cards

It’s very important in a customer referral program to be open and honest about the rewards you are offering existing customers for their referrals. Be sure to tell your customers to let any referrals know that they will also be benefitting. This protects your prospective new customers from feeling they are being misled or manipulated. This strategy also has added benefits. When new customers hear about the referral program it may get them thinking that they could also sign up to the VIP Club and reap some of the benefits.

Choose Your VIP Club Members Carefully

Ultimately you only want clients in your VIP Club who are absolutely delighted with your products and services. You want customers that really love you and buy from you regularly. That way when they give client referrals it is a natural extension of their customer experience with you. In other words, they are people that would naturally refer people on to you. The only difference is that now as members of the VIP Club you are rewarding your loyal customers.

Remember that a client referral program is about rewarding your existing customers and building better relationships with them. If you do this properly, referrals will seem like the most natural thing for clients. Your programs should not say: “Buy from me and I’ll give you this”. Instead it should say: “Use me, and as a thank you, you can benefit from these special privileges”. It’s all about using the right approach and building relationships with customers.

The thing with referrals is that people know that their reputation is also on the line. Most people won’t make a recommendation unless they know it’s a business, product or service that they can trust. If you have built a good relationship with your customers, they know you won’t let them down if they refer people to you. This is what makes referrals so powerful. It is about building trust with prospects even before they come in to buy from you. It is one of the strongest ways you can build your business.