Enhancing your customer retention

How much money does it cost your company to attract and on-board new customers? On average, it costs seven times more to attract new customers than it does to retain pre-existing customers. Smart businesses know that putting effort into retaining customers increases your profits, improves your time efficiency, and raises your customer satisfaction levels. In this week’s blog, we’re going to be sharing our five steps to help you to retain your customers.

1.      Get to know your customers

Customer service should be a two way street. As well as providing your customers with products and/or services, get to know why they are with you in the first place. What has triggered their contact with you, is it a new or ongoing project, is it an essential transaction or a luxury one? Once you are aware of the context behind their business, use your innovation and creativity to develop techniques to enable them to reach their business goals. Customer satisfaction will increase, as should your retention rates.

2.      Reward loyalty

What do Tesco, Boots, and Starbucks all have in common? They have a programme in place to reward customer loyalty. Customer loyalty programmes are a simple and effective way to show your customers how much you value their repeat custom. This does not have to be an expensive solution, a certain amount of purchases could result in a complementary gift, or even a prize draw, will entice your customers to increase their purchases, and retain their business.

Not in the budget? Sometimes the best way to show appreciation is the most old fashioned. Consider sending personalised thank you notes after each purchase, or even emails if you lack the time.

3.      Listen 

‘We have two ears and one mouth and we should use them proportionally’ Susan Cain

This quote from Susan Cain should lead as your customer retention philosophy. Your customers know you have great products and services, and of course you should keep them informed of any new developments or items, but you should also be customer led. Seek constant customer feedback by maintaining constant communication with your customers. You could also utilise anonymous feedback websites, such as Survey Monkey, to receive truly honest feedback.

With customer communication channels established, you should be in a strong position to understand your customer pain points. Take care, not just to eliminate these problems, but to understand what has caused them in the first place. Once you know what has caused the problem, you will be in a stronger position to ensure that they do not happen again.

4.      Showcase the proof

In today’s modern business environment, there are no excuses for not utilising social media. Websites and apps such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram offer a fantastic opportunity to show the personal side to your brand, as well as communicating with your customers directly and informally. Support your customers on social media, providing tailored advice and communication. Where possible, engage with and encourage your customer’s content – particularly where it concerns you!

5.      Educate and motivate

If you provide your customers with a holistic solution to their pain points (see step one), they’ll never need to look elsewhere. Part of this, is providing an education as a complementary part of your service or products. This could be as simple as running online webinars on programmes such as Webex or Brighttalk,  creating PDFs for solutions to common issues, or even providing workshops for your customers in house.

To conclude

As we’ve shown, customer retention strategies needn’t be costly or time intensive, mostly, they boil down to simple appreciation and understanding, and can greatly improve your bottom line. What strategies do you use to retain customers? Tweet us at @BorgOverstrom to let us know.