It takes a lot of work to bring in a new customer. You have to attract their attention, talk to them about what you have to offer, then convince them to become a customer.
After spending so much time and effort getting someone to become a customer, it’s a shame to just let them slip away.
6 Tactics to Step Up Your Customer Retention Efforts
This is why it’s important to focus on your customer retention efforts. It’s a lot easier to get an old customer to come back than it is to bring in a new one.
With this in mind, below are some tactics you can use to step up your customer retention efforts and keep your customers around longer.
Better Customer Interactions
One of the most important things you should focus on is your interactions with customers. Every time you interact with a customer, they are forming an opinion of you.
If they have just one bad interaction, they are less likely to come back again. The key place to focus on your interactions is within your customer support.
Start by ensuring there are adequate ways for your customers to get in touch with you. Offer some combination of email support, live chat, over the phone, or through social media.
The more ways you can offer, the better. Then, for each channel, train your customer support staff to provide better help and communicate in a positive way.
Another place where you can frequently interact with your customers is through social media. Many people love to reach out to you on socials with questions about a product or to get help with an order.
Make sure that you have enough people to handle social media inquiries in a timely manner, as answering quickly is one of the best things you can do. If you need help with your social media tasks, consider hiring a social media agency to manage everything for you.
They are equipped with the latest knowledge about the industry and can help you get the desired results quicker.
More Frequent Customer Interactions
One of the biggest reasons that a customer goes to another business is simply because they forget about you. To fix this, you should stay in touch with your customers after they complete their purchases. There are a few ways you can do this.
For starters, you can send out regular emails, including updates on your business or exclusive discounts. You can also encourage customers to follow you on social media so that they regularly see your social posts.
Finally, if you work in direct sales, reach out to old customers and conduct some follow-ups. See how they liked the product and if they have any new needs you can meet.
One phone call could be the difference between keeping a high-value customer around and letting them slip away.
Produce Better Content
A great tactic to implement is giving your customers another reason to interact with your business besides making a purchase. You can do this by producing great content. For example, let’s say you run a beauty product supply company.
On your website, you could have dozens of guides and other articles related to skincare, makeup tips, and anything else your customers might want to know. Now your customers will visit your site for the information they need but also keep you in mind when it comes time to buy again.
To produce better content, you need a few things. Starting off, you need to think about what your audience wants. Gather some feedback from your audience, analyze your competitors and check out some blogs in your niche for ideas.
Second, you need talented writers to produce this content for you. There’s a ton of content on the web and you need something that will stand out from all the rest.
Finally, consider getting a knowledge base management system to help you organize everything and help your customers easily find what they are looking for.
Start a Loyalty Program
A loyalty program is a great way to reward people for sticking around. With a loyalty program, you reward your customers with gifts or discounts based on how often, or how much, they buy from you. For example, you could reward your customers with 100 points for every $10 that they spend. Then, when your customer has 10,000 points, they can redeem them for special discounts or a gift card. It’s a small bonus that encourages customers to continue shopping with you, rather than exploring a competitor. Here is more information about starting a loyalty program if you want to try this out.
Add Personal Touches
Customers love a personalized experience. To improve your customer retention rates, look to add a few personal touches throughout your business.
For instance, you can reach out to the customer on their birthday and offer them a discount or special gift. You could also send them alerts when a product that they have previously purchased goes on sale.
If you work directly with the customer, record some personal information about them from your conversations and bring it up in future phone calls. Customers love it when you pay attention to the details and provide them with an individualized experience so look to do this wherever you can.
Take Customer Feedback
Finally, be sure to not only take customer feedback but implement it as well. Sometimes the only way to know what a customer requires in order to stick around is by asking them directly.
If your customers frequently complain about some aspect of your business, improving it would help to retain more customers. Put systems into place to collect customer feedback, such as focus groups or online surveys.
Then, make it a regular habit to review this feedback and implement changes that will keep customers around.
Don’t Let the Customer Slip Away
You spend a lot of time and money bringing customers to your business. Don’t let that hard work go to waste by allowing them to become a one-time customer.
A few simple tactics can keep bringing those customers back for more, making your initial time and resource investment even more valuable.
Keeping old customers around, while still attracting new ones, is the foundation upon which any successful business rests so implement the tactics above as soon as you get a chance.
