Want to retain your customers? Here’s how you do it.

Customer retention is the key revenue generator that most companies tend to ignore. Groove HQ increased their customer retention by 5% and this led to 95% increase in their business profits.

Is it surprising or unusual when sales professionals tend to focus more on acquiring new customers, than retaining the existing loyal ones? No, absolutely not.
In fact, you are tempted to channelize all your energy towards acquiring new customers. Obviously, the growth of your business mostly relies on new customer acquisition, right? However, there’s more to it than that.
Customer retention is the key revenue generator that most companies tend to ignore.

Customer retention is the key revenue generator that most companies tend to ignore.

HQ increased their customer retention by 5% and this led to 95% increase in their business profits. According to data from Marketing Wizdom, it was found that due to lack of efficient customer relationship, an average business loses about 20% of its business annually.

Here’s a little sneak peek on some popular strategies employed by successful businesses to retain customers:

Surprise your customers

Everybody loves surprises. Most of us look forward to birthday surprises or surprises from our loved ones or family. This brings an inexplicable joy within us and creates a stronger bond between us and them. It also gives us the notion that they really do care about us.

Well, customers are people and people have emotions. Surprising customers with surprise packages and offers or maybe a small thing as a handwritten greeting would build trust between the businesses and the customers. The only way to make customers stay is sometimes going out of your way to reach out to them and offer those
brands or services that are beyond ordinary services.

The only way to make customers stay is sometimes going out of your way to reach out to them and offer those
brands or services that are beyond ordinary services.

Another way of surprising them could be offering free gifts or discounts without them knowing about it. All of this will inspire them to leave honest feedback about the service or product and instil a sense of belonging in the customers.

Knowing Customer Expectations

At present, customer service is more than resolving complaints and responding to inquiries. It is also about meeting Customer Expectations. Well, that’s a tough one. How can someone possibly please somebody who they barely know? The key is to learn and understand what the customers’ desire and set markers to achieve their expectations.

According to Harvard Business Review, Customers want to be empowered, not controlled. You have to act with empathy.

Customers want to be empowered, not controlled. You have to act with empathy.

The markers set and the promises made have to be realistic. Most customers can see through unrealistic promises. Therefore, instead of succeeding in your strategy, you might end up falling flat if you intend to make promises that are unattainable and non-convincing.

The secret to a sustainable business is customer satisfaction. If you fail to offer the product or service at the specified time, you’ve simply failed as a brand. Negative experiences are difficult to forget and move on. Customers with such experiences live with them for ages.

Emphasizing on Customer Feedback Surveys

Customer Feedback surveys are extremely powerful tools for building customer relationships and engagement. They are being given an opportunity to speak out their minds and have their opinion about the brand. These surveys might seem boring and tedious at times, but they are worth it.

The surveys help businesses to make changes so as to bring customer satisfaction by modifying those things that inconvenience them. In certain cases, companies transition from being just average or mediocre to respected and popular ones. Automation software enabling customer feedback and engagement serves a big deal in increased profits in businesses.

Calculating Customer Lifetime Value

Customers are the biggest assets of a business or an enterprise. Customer Lifetime Value (CLV) is the key indicator that shows the worth of the customers over a period of time. The value brought in by each customer into the business is called Customer Equity and it is super important for every businessman to consider it. Time will reveal if the customers are there to stay or just leave after staying for a while. Some customers come back around to buy the products or receive the services again. Such repeated buyers are also known as VIP Customers.

CLV determines how much you invest in customer engagement which in turn will increase revenue and sales, thus increasing business profits. Word of mouth testimony by such customers will ensure the growth and expansion of the business as more and more customers begin to flood in.

Launching Onboarding Programs

Getting customers’ attention and educating them about the product and services through onboarding programs have been found to be one of the most successful tools in Customer Retention. It helps to prevent ‘burning and churning’ with new customers. These programs consist of a company representative teaching customers about the products or services offered.
New customers always seem to be frustrated and sceptical about new products.

New customers always seem to be frustrated and sceptical about new products.

Such programs enable them to use the products or services offered to achieve their goals.

Corporate Social Responsibility- The Branding Factor

Customers are constantly vigilant about the businesses’ activities, messages conveyed and the advertisements of the products and services. They are quick to judge between the companies’ messaging and its actions and figure out the humanity in them. An enterprise or business is more than just a product or service. Therefore, it is of utmost importance that the company creates its own Corporate Social Responsibility Program.

Lego has invested more than USD 150 million to make its products more environment-friendly. The measures taken do not have to be competitive or ambitious, but rather cater to the customers’ societal needs and personal goals and express your commitment towards them through such programs.

Prioritizing Customer Convenience

The coffee giant ‘Starbucks’ constantly brings out new innovations in marketing especially in the customer acquisition and retention department. In the beginning, the Starbucks founders Zev Siegl, Jerry Baldwin and Gordon Bowker emphasized on the right music and sound as well as the aroma of coffee in their shops to delight the customers and draw them in. They needed just more than that to bring in customers. Therefore, they launched an innovative feature in their Mobile App; Mobile Order and Pay feature. This helped the customers to order their coffee even before they even reached the shops.

One Starbucks customer adds, “Just this morning I parked at my kid’s school, placed my order in the parking lot, took him inside, then walked over to Starbucks and picked up my drink. Mobile Order and Pay can cut 10 minutes out of my morning routine. I told my boss that it’s the reason I’m actually on time for work now”.

” Accessibility and identifying customers’ behaviours and needs are the two factors that ensure development of innovative programs for customer convenience.”

Ensuring the ‘GAP’ between the company and its competitors

Apple is undoubtedly one of the pioneers in displaying this ‘gap’ through their remarkable strategies and more importantly, their ‘MAC vs PC’ Campaign. The campaign included casting of John Hodgman as the outdated PC and Justin Long as the outstanding MAC. The two humorously argued over which one was better. This campaign was not only controversial but it set apart Apple from its competitors and clarified the kind of customers who would buy Apple products.

The lesson learned from this that it is perfectly fine to make bold choices and stand for what you believe in. Sometimes you might fail along the way and hurt yourself but the result is quite satisfying.

To sum it all up in a nutshell, Customer Retention Strategies deserve an unprecedented amount of attention in order to enable the growth of a business, increase profits and generate revenue. These strategies are what determine whether the customers stay with the company, have great customer engagement and presume to benefit the value of the products and services offered.