It’s no secret that the best customer is one that is loyal to your brand. These are the customers that come back to purchase from you time and time again and don’t need to be convinced that your brand is the best.
Building brand loyalty is essential to capturing those lifetime customers who will choose your brand every time. Imagine offering a Samsung Galaxy to an iPhone user or bringing a Pepsi to a Coca-Cola drinker. As you can imagine, the result does not end well for Samsung and Pepsi.
The automotive industry creates consumers who are just as dedicated, and competition is fierce. Creating a ride-or-die customer base for a particular make is key to creating and maintaining a successful brand. After all, loyalty is what builds and topples empires.
So, how does an OEM build brand loyalty?
One underutilized method to creating a loyal customer is through OEM parts and accessories, which starts at the top with OEM manufacturers investing in parts programs for their dealer partners.
If you’re ready to build brand loyalty through an OEM parts program, there are 5 key steps you must follow:
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- Engage Your Buyers Where They Are
- Offer Superior Products
- Provide Amazing Customer Experiences
- Offer Rapid Delivery Options
- Establish Consistent Communication
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Step 1: Engage With Your Buyers Wherever They Shop
The world is quickly changing, and more people are shopping online. If your brand is not optimized for eCommerce sales, you could be missing out on an opportunity to capture that loyal customer.
So far, in 2021, more than 230 million shoppers in the US have made purchases online, and these digital buyers are predicted to generate more than $469 billion in revenue. What this means is that 30% of all sales this year are expected to be made online.
This trend is not slowing down and is only expected to grow in the future, especially when it comes to auto parts sales.
In 2020, 74% of all auto parts and accessories shoppers researched or viewed parts online before making their purchase (45% of which were made through a mobile device), and 57% of those consumers visited a manufacturer’s website.
Online shoppers looking for OEM parts are not just turning to dealers and manufacturers to make their purchases but are considering alternative options, such as Amazon and eBay.
For OEMs, this is a clear sign that customers are searching for more convenient ways to shop. It’s time to engage your customers where they are shopping—online.
By not investing in parts eCommerce solutions, you could be missing out on the 57% of consumers searching online for parts and accessories and billions of dollars in projected online sales.
Step 2: Offer Top-Quality, Superior Products
Customers become loyal to your brand when you offer superior products. You may know that OEM parts are of higher quality and provide better performance than aftermarket parts and accessories, but does your customer?
Your first step in creating a loyal customer is through education and promotion, making the customer aware that shopping with you is better than any other option—especially an aftermarket competitor.
RevolutionParts helps you with this by pulling in your catalog data to ensure shoppers get the right part. We can also optimize your website with content to educate customers on the value of OEM parts by providing digital marketing services to amplify that message further.
Once the customer purchases an OEM part, you have the opportunity to fulfill every promise you made. Your product should speak for itself and be backed by a customer experience that can’t be beaten, which leads us to step #3…
Step 3: Provide an Amazing Customer Experience
The experience a customer has throughout their buying experience plays a major role in establishing brand loyalty. When your customers have a positive experience from start to finish, they remember that, while a negative or forgetful customer experience can open them up to considering new options next time.
Customer experience is a major factor in a buyer’s decision-making that 86% of them are willing to pay 13-18% more for a product or service if they receive a good customer experience.
Convenience and Ease
Purchasing auto parts should be easy and convenient for your customers. One way to ensure this is by providing an easy-to-use online experience. Your customers should be able to:
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- Easily find what they need
- Receive personally curated part recommendations
- Visualize the part through high-quality images
- Choose between multiple shipping options
- Have a painless checkout experience
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Step 4: Offer Rapid Delivery on Parts and Accessories
We live in the age of Amazon, where purchasing is easy and shipping is fast. There are new expectations for purchasing products online, and if you are not living up to these expectations, your customers will find another brand that can.
If you are selling OEM parts, you need to offer a solution that delivers those parts to your customer within hours of purchase. In fact, same-day delivery is so important that 61% of online shoppers will pay an additional cost to get their purchase as soon as possible.
To help manufacturers meet this demand, RevolutionParts Local Delivery offers on-demand solutions that will get the items purchased to the customer in as little as an hour – without relying on a dealer employing a hotshot delivery driver.
For those orders where same-day delivery isn’t always an option, you can provide multiple shipping options and package tracking that will keep your customers informed about the status of their shipment.
Step 5: Establish Regular Communication With Parts Customers
When someone purchases an OEM part, you are given information about that customer that can be used in the future. You learn what vehicle they own (year, make and model) and the demographics of that particular customer. By gathering this information, you can break down the marketing challenges that are often hard to overcome for someone who is not the first vehicle owner.
With this information, you can customize your owner marketing materials, encouraging them to purchase parts, accessories, and vehicles from you down the road.
By keeping in contact with your customers and following up with them regularly, you do two things:
1) Provide a positive and memorable customer experience
2) Develop a lasting bond with that customer
From the point of purchase, you should be establishing consistent communication with that customer, from following on their purchase to offering promotional materials to draw them back. The goal is to keep them engaged with your brand, so when they are ready to purchase their next vehicle, they would never imagine purchasing another brand.
Brand Loyalty Solutions for Manufacturers
Building brand loyalty doesn’t just happen. It takes time, strategy, and the right tools to make the five steps above successful. RevolutionParts offers a digital solution for manufacturers to successfully provide their customers with a stellar customer experience and build that loyalty.
Contact us today for a free consultation on how RevolutionParts can help you grow and implement a successful parts program.
