Although your business may see a lot of new customers each month, your real success will come from maintaining a high level of customer retention. Repeat customers will add considerable funds to your bottom line and enable you to obtain a more stable and predictable income. Knowing how to get repeat business is just as important as being able to draw new customers to your business.
As an example, if your business gets 100 new customers each month, and you retain 50 percent of them, you will end up with 1,800 customers for the year. If, however, you were able to retain 70 percent of your customers, you end up with 2,040 customers for the year – even if you only still get 100 new customers per month. That is a difference of 240 sales! By the way, it is much easier and cheaper to market to existing customers than it is to win new ones.
Here are five customer retention strategies you can use to help keep your customers coming back.
- Find out your customer attrition rate
If you are not keeping some sort of records, it is highly likely that you are losing more customers than you realize. Finding out how many there are and then determining to do something about it can help solve this problem. Aim to reduce attrition.
- Use social media
Many people today use some form of social media. While you do not want to use all of them, find out where your target market is most likely to hang out and use it as much as possible for advertising and retention marketing. In addition to email marketing, you want to use it to maintain contact with customers. When negative opinions are given, make sure to respond quickly to correct problems. You can also use it to understand what your customers’ needs are, as well as their wants in the way of product development or service.
- Develop a Customer Loyalty Program
Competitors are always seeking to rob you of your best customers. A customer loyalty program can help you with retaining customers by rewarding them for faithfulness. The program will also encourage them to do more business with you and will help keep them happy. Make your rewards unique and valuable for better results.
- Get Customer Reviews
Getting customer reviews can help your business obtain new customers and keep some of your existing ones. Testimonials continue to be a powerful way to influence others, especially since more than half (60%) of shoppers trust them. You can use testimonials in the form of quotes but videos will be more effective.
- Personalize the Customer Experience
Customers also like to receive opportunities for special prices or gifts. When they feel that they are being treated special, they will likely do business with you again. You can boost this perception by providing them with special coupons and special offers. You can also encourage them to participate in a survey with a reward for taking part in it. Don’t forget that when your staff has friendly attitudes and a willingness to be genuinely helpful, it will go a long way to make them want to return. Having a short response time when calling your business will also help.
Developing a good customer retention program will quickly make it worthwhile for your business. Putting the customer first and seeking to please them will get noticed and bring them back. When you start seeing more customers return because they like doing business with you, along with a better ROI, you know that your customer retention methods are working.
