HR and leadership

For a business to succeed in the long-term, you need to think about customer retention. You can’t just be attracting new customers everyday only for them to disappear months later. Any smart entrepreneur will tell you that it’s cheaper to market to existing customers than it is to acquire new ones.

So if you’re not paying special attention to your customer’s loyalty, you should be doing so now. Here are ways that you can increase customer retention. 

Fix Your Pain Points

Do you understand why your customers are leaving in the first place? Maybe it’s the product quality, or the lack of good customer service. Find out what it is that’s driving your customers away and fix the problem. 

Don’t have an idea what the problem is? Conduct a survey on your existing customers. Don’t be afraid to ask for feedback. If anything, they will appreciate your efforts in wanting to improve your service. You might just receive valuable insights that you never thought would have made a difference. 

1. Enhance The Customer Experience

So maybe customers aren’t leaving but they’re just not as crazy as your product as they should be. A way to retain them is by enhancing their satisfaction. Make it a worthwhile experience for them when they buy from you. Make the packaging nice, offer a discount on their next purchase, or send a personalized email thanking them for choosing your business.  It makes customers feel good and will make them more likely to buy from you in the near future.

2. Employ 24/7 Customer Service

Who says convenience stores have to be the only ones who do 24/7 service? You can too! And it doesn’t have to cost you extra. There are technologies available today that allow you to cater to customers in real time. 

Have you heard of livechat? It lets you receive customer’s queries in real-time and respond to them right away. It can even be automated. With AI becoming mainstream this coming decade, there’s already a host of chatbots that can respond to messages without your supervision. The best AI chatbot only needs to be setup once and it only gets smarter the more queries it answers. With this service available, your customers’ concerns get answered right away.

For example, if you have a service that requires minor details to be looked at for the sake of your relationship with your customer, chatbots are a perfect way to gather information for you to sift through and make an analytical report on. If you owned a subscription box service, you’d need a chatbot to gather all the nitty-gritty details before you create a specific box for your customer. The chatbot allows them to gather marketing information so you can keep your customers happy and coming back for your products. 

3. Educate Your Customer

This is called the onboarding process. If you sell a sophisticated product, you’ll want to onboard your customers so they know exactly how to utilize it. Some don’t get enough information from the merchant about the product they sell that the customer gives up feeling frustrated. Prevent that from happening by having a FAQ on your website, a downloadable guide, or a pocket guide that comes with the product.

4. Gamify Their Loyalty

Do you know why Starbucks gets more sales during the holidays? It’s because of their planners which you get when you collect enough stickers. These stickers are acquired only by buying drinks from their menu. You can employ the same tactic with your business by gamifying customer loyalty. It can be with a reward they get if they purchase a specific amount or if they purchase enough times during the month. This makes the buying experience more exciting and is guaranteed to keep your customers coming back.

5. Celebrate Your Customers

Gather up a list of your most important customers and give them a shoutout on your platform whether it’s on your website or social media platforms. You can also do it discreetly by giving them an extra special discount on their next order. And don’t forget to tell them the reason why they’re getting the discount. Customers like to know that they made the right buying decision. By doing this, it reinforces that fact and will make them stick to you longer.

Authored by Gil Artmoore

 

This is a sponsored post.