As a business owner, you probably focus much of your resources on attracting new Customers. And there’s nothing wrong with that. Increasing the number of your Customers helps your business grow. But if you want a solid regular revenue base, then you need to do everything possible to ensure your Customers keep on coming back to your business.
How do you get Customers to return to your business on a regular basis?
#1. Reward them for coming back. …
#2. Stay in touch with them. …
#3. Give them a positive experience. …
#4. Make yourself accessible. …
#5. Practice social responsibility. …
The Benefits Of Customer Retention Strategies
- “A 5% increase in Customer retention can boost profits by 25% to 95%”
- “Almost 65% of a company’s business comes from repeat Customers“
- “82% of companies agree that retention is cheaper than acquisition“
The cost of acquisition as 5 to 7 times higher than retention.
Put it another way, retaining customers is cheaper, more profitable, and more sustainable for your business in the long run.
Customer retention strategies aim to improve the Customer experience, and to generate longstanding loyalty.
5 Effective Customer Retention Strategies
#1 Reward your Customers for coming back. Implement a loyalty program
One of the best ways to entice customers to come back to your business is to incentivize their return. Give them a promo code, a discount on their next transaction, a freebie, or any token that will make them look forward to their next purchase. You don’t have to offer tremendous discounts — even small ones can delight customers.
Another tried-and-tested practice is loyalty program implementation. Such programs cultivate continued loyalty. Fact: more than 90% of companies have some loyalty program in place today.
Research shows that “consumers tend to prefer direct rewards, which are specifically tied to the provider”. So, implement a loyalty program that best suits your business, including:
- Point-based programs
- Tiered programs
- Paid loyalty
- Value loyalty
Such programs aim to foster loyalty and secure Customer retention.
#2 Stay in touch with your Customers. Survey your Customers to reduce churn
An effective way to tackle low retention rates is to reduce Customer churn.:
- “The probability of successfully selling a product or service to a prospect is between 5-20%. The probability of successfully selling to an existing Customer is 60-70%.”
- “68% of Customers churn because they think a company doesn’t care about them.”
- “32% of all Customers would stop doing business with a brand they loved after one bad experience.”
So, do keep in touch with your Customers by, for example, surveying Customers and gaining feedback:
- Email surveys
- Social media surveys and reactions
- Product and service reviews
Surveys and reviews serve a twofold purpose: they let you acquire feedback while confirming your interest in keeping in touch with your Customers. This feedback may reveal shortcomings in your service or products which you can then address.
#3 Give Customers a positive experience – build a relationship through personalized communication
Deliver exceptional Customer service at every turn. Answer their questions, anticipate and meet their needs. Create connections that will last. Examples:
- Marketing emails.Marketing emails with personalized headlines, subject lines, and copy yield higher open rates and click-through rates (CTR).
- Personalized Customer service correspondence. Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software can generate responses based on prior interactions history and on Customer segmentation criteria.
- Social media responses. Personalize responses to messages, comments, tags, and references.
#4 Make yourself accessible. Automate re-engagement emails
Make use of all your communication channels, including social media. Be sure to reply as promptly as you can. Customers are more likely to trust businesses that they can contact and receive prompt responses.
Lead scoring and email automation are aimed at enhancing efficiency. Optimal timing and personalized communications can result in relationships of value. Many automation and A/B testing solutions are available to facilitate such things as:
- Different Customers are best engaged or re-engaged after specific time periods. Demographic, behavioral, psychographic, and other means of segmentation can help here.
- Different Customer segments respond differently to contact frequency. Set different, personalized contact intervals.
- Behavioral and value-based segmentation can provide optimal price points for re-engagement emails.
#5 Practice social responsibility. “Under-promise and over-deliver”
According to this study on consumer expectations on social responsibility:
- 70% of consumers want to know what their favorite brands are doing about environmental and social issues.
- 46% take a brand’s social responsibility into account before making a purchase.
Generate goodwill by becoming active in charitable initiatives in your own community.
In addition, coined by Thomas J. Peters, you may “under-promise and over-deliver”. This approach is based on the premise of exceeding Customer expectations and thus achieving satisfaction. For example, typically, businesses will offer an estimated shipping date and then ship earlier. Or, they will give regular Customers ‘3 for 1’ rather than the advertised ‘2 for 1’.
To summarize: the best way to make sure your customers come back to your business is to establish a relationship with them and gain their trust. Engage them and make them feel like that what matters to them is important to you, too. Customer retention takes time and effort, but its rewards are worth it.
FinTech Management Services’ Applications and Services, such as:
Have various features which can help in retaining your customers, leaving you free to focus on operational matters, and growing your business. Contact us today if you would like more information.
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