Top 5 Customer Retention Strategies

The three most important goals of any business are Leads, Customer and Sales. In order to build a growing business, brands should take care of their most significant assets – Customers. Most if not all businesses are obsessed with lead generation but careless when it comes to customer retention. Of course, acquiring new leads is great, but retaining existing customers should be your primary focus because several studies found that 68% of sales come from existing customers. Brands should never underestimate the power of a loyal customer base. According to Brandongaille, 12 – 15% of consumers are loyal to a single retailer, and they represent 55 – 70% of sales. In this article we will explain the steps that a brand needs to take in order to retain existing customers. Without further ado, let’s get started.

1. Complaint is a gift

Nearly 96 per cent of dissatisfied customers don’t complain, they walk away, and brands never know why. The reason for this is most customers don’t know how to reach customer care and complaint, and most of the time, they don’t think that their complaint will make any difference. A system for uncovering complaints can consequently be the success factor of the business. When customers complain, they are talking to the brand, and if the brand is not available to talk, then they will tell others about their experience, which will not be suitable for the brand. So, when a customer complains, understand the complaint and provide them with a state of satisfaction and create even greater customer loyalty.

2. Don’t just sell products, educate the customers.

According to a recent study “proactively providing information on how to avoid problems or get more out of the product” will create a 32% average lift to repurchase or recommend. The last thing a brand should do is leaving its customers in the hands of themselves. It’s essential to give resources that make it easy for the customers to learn how to use the product. There are a many ways to train and educate them about the product, few of them are:

Send a series of lifecycle emails designed to guide new customers through the process of learning how to use your product.
Create an online academy of training resources for new customers who prefer self-service training.

3. Offer a discount or credit to return.

When discounts are sent to the first-time customer, they want to purchase more. Likewise, giving a discount for a customer’s next purchase is a great way to push them to come back. For this reason, discounting is an effective way to draw attention to the customers that haven’t purchased in a while. Brands can even strengthen that push by giving them more than the standard 10% off. Giving 20%+ is more motivating, and according to MarketWired, once a customer comes back for a second purchase, they have a 54% chance of doing so again.

4. Be transparent and honest with customers

As a brand, don’t hold back anything which makes it hard for customers to establish a relationship, the motive here should be to build transparency. It is also important to have healthy, unambiguous conversations about ideas and strategies that the brand is trying to bring to the table. To have a successful relationship, brands should maintain transparency about everything from payment and return policies to any causes that need support through your sales

5. Provide Personalization

Brands collect lots of data on their customers in order to retain customers, and brands should use this data to improve their customer’s experience. Before reaching out to a customer, brands should know how they like to be contacted, or what items they have bought previously, or what previous interactions looked like, was it a good experience or not. Don’t just make them feel like any other; customers often become frustrated if they have to repeat the same information over and over. By offering a personalized experience, customers will feel like a part of the team and associate with the brands with a smooth and comfortable experience.

Focusing the time and energy on improving the experience for retaining customers as oppose to always trying to find new customers can be a powerful way to supercharge revenues for your brand.