Not all customers contribute to your business in the same way. Some build long-term value through loyalty and advocacy; others drive sales volume through frequent transactions. Understanding the difference is key to designing a strategy that maximizes growth and efficiency.
valued-customer">What is a valued customer?
A valued customer drives a brand’s success through purchases and deeper engagement and loyalty. They:
- Show loyalty, repeatedly choosing the brand over competitors and prioritizing quality and service over price.
- Advocate, promoting the brand through word-of-mouth and reviews.
- Engage, provide feedback, participate in programs and support brand growth.
- Form an emotional connection, aligning with the brand’s values and acting as ambassadors.
- Drive profitability with high-margin purchases and lower acquisition or retention costs.
What is a volume customer?
A volume customer primarily contributes through frequent purchases but at lower profit margins. They:
- Have a transactional focus, making frequent purchases but lacking strong loyalty, as they prioritize price and convenience.
- Are cost-sensitive, often switching to competitors when better deals are available.
- Engage minimally, primarily interacting with the brand at transactional touchpoints.
- Offer limited advocacy, rarely promoting the brand unless there’s an issue.
- Impact operations, placing a strain on customer service due to high transaction volumes while providing little strategic feedback.
- Drive high sales volume but at lower margins, often gravitating toward commoditized or discounted products.
How do they differ?
Valued customers see the brand as a partner, forming a deeper emotional connection. On the other hand, volume customers know the brand as a means to an end focused on transactions with minimal investment in the relationship.
Recognizing these differences allows you to nurture long-term relationships with valued customers while maintaining efficient systems for transactional ones. Identifying each type requires a data-driven approach, strategic segmentation and analysis of behaviors, contributions, and engagement levels.
Dig deeper: How customer-centric marketing fuels long-term success
Nurturing valued customers
There are several ways to nurture your valued customers, including:
- Personalizing experiences using data-driven insights to deliver tailored offers, recommendations and messages. Reinforce the emotional connection by sending personalized thank-you notes or exclusive content.
- Offering exclusive benefits, such as VIP programs with perks like priority service, early access to products, or premium experiences. Additionally, create loyalty programs that reward engagement, advocacy and repeat business over time (being careful not to create an environment that fosters volume over loyalty/value).
- Engaging proactively with customers by seeking feedback through surveys, focus groups or advisory boards, but don’t forget to act on their input. Anticipate needs through predictive/prescriptive analytics and surprise them with proactive solutions.
- Publicly acknowledging their contributions, such as featuring them in testimonials or case studies and rewarding advocacy behaviors like referrals or positive reviews with meaningful incentives.
- Offering enhanced customer support, like providing dedicated account managers or priority access to customer support channels and resolving issues with speed and empathy, ensuring a consistently superior experience.
Dig deeper: 7 ways to boost customers’ emotional connection and loyalty with your brand
Maintaining efficiency for volume customers
While it’s essential to nurture your valued customers, it’s equally important to maintain efficiency for volume customers. Strategies to do so include:
- Streamlining transactions by optimizing the checkout process to minimize friction and leveraging automation for quick responses to common inquiries or support requests.
- Offering intuitive self-service portals or apps for order tracking, FAQs and simple problem resolution, while using AI-powered chatbots for 24/7 support on routine matters.
- Using targeted discounts, bundles or promotions to encourage repeat purchases without overextending resources while implementing loyalty programs that are easy to join and reward frequent transactions.
- Communicating efficiently through email campaigns, SMS or push notifications to inform them about deals and updates, ensuring your communication is clear, concise and action-oriented.
- Using analytics to predict purchasing patterns and stock accordingly. Segment volume customers to identify opportunities to move them into the valued customer category over time.
Dig deeper: Unlocking customer loyalty: 5 core motivations powering personalized marketing
Tailoring the customer experience for valued and volume customers
Designing the customer experience effectively means considering both valued and volume customers. However, the focus, resources and strategies must align with your business goals, core value proposition and customer base. Different businesses will prioritize these customer types differently.
For example, a luxury brand will prioritize valued customers and exceptional service. A discount retailer will focus on efficiency and price sensitivity for volume customers. A software platform will likely balance both by nurturing valued power users while streamlining processes for casual users.
Focus on valued customers when:
- Your business relies on repeat customers and advocacy, such as subscription services, luxury brands or B2B businesses.
- You have limited resources and need to prioritize high-margin, long-term relationships.
- You want to foster brand loyalty or premium positioning in the market.
Focus on volume customers when:
- Your model thrives on scale, such as fast-moving consumer goods or ecommerce.
- Margins are lower, but customer acquisition is high and the primary goal is transaction efficiency.
- You are in a competitive market where convenience and price are key differentiators.
Focus on both when:
- You have a diverse customer base, with distinct segments contributing to your success.
- Your brand strategy includes growing both transactional sales and long-term customer relationships.
- You want to balance immediate revenue with sustainable, long-term growth.
Designing for both means creating a flexible customer experience that supports immediate and sustained success. Valued customers drive growth, while volume customers provide immediate revenue.
Remember, volume customers can become valued customers. By encouraging deeper engagement, you can convert them over time. Segment your customers based on factors like lifetime value, repeat purchases, engagement and price sensitivity. Developing personas will help guide your experience design.
Dig deeper: How to develop a winning B2B ideal customer profile
In closing
Understanding the differences between valued and volume customers is key to designing an experience that drives immediate results and long-term success. Recognizing each group’s unique needs, behaviors and contributions, is key to creating strategies that connect with high-value and transactional customers.
When businesses prioritize the right customers in the right way, they go beyond meeting expectations and create lasting value for all involved.
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