Getting to retain your customers after they have tested your products or service may seem complex since numerous businesses are offering similar services as you. The process of retaining new or existing customers may or not be influenced by price power, and value for money spent among others.
Therefore, brands and businesses should be able to come up with ideas on how to make a new customer become a returning customer, and how to further keep existing customers stuck to your brand and business. Because we understand the work needed to have your new and existing customers glued to you, this guide will elucidate 10 ways to improve consumer retention.
Customer Retention Strategies & Importance
A business with a high rate of loyal customers can be said to be a successful business. A firm must be strategic while trying to retain customers since it is beneficial to their overall growth.
The ability to retain loyal customers boosts sales, increases business size, drives potential customers through a referral system, helps businesses understand consumer needs, etc.
10 Ways To Improve Customer Retention
- Know your customer’s demands
- Providing multimedia guide
- Honest Reviews
- Personalized greetings
- Reward programs
- Launch a community forum
- Choose a preferred mode of communication
- Ensure optimum satisfaction of queries
- Branding
- Organizing events
Know your customer’s demands
Getting to understand your customer’s demands and how to meet their demands will keep them from trying other brands. For example, if you offer sales of carbonated beverages, you have to understand your customer’s favorite flavor, what they feel about the price of your product if they’re satisfied with the quantity, and lots more.
You can further gather all of this information by releasing a questionnaire or a short survey to be answered by your customers, that way you’ll get to understand their needs and demands while you strategize on how to address them. You can also gather helpful information from your customers through phone calls and comments sent through the communication channels provided by the firm.
Providing multimedia guide
New or existing customers may likely need help in understanding how a product or service works, and how they may benefit from it. Although this can be expressed through content writing on diverse platforms, businesses may further provide an educational guide through image, video, or audio files.
Getting to educate your customers through multimedia presentations allows them to understand what you offer, and then keep your brand incorporated in their thoughts. A video guide is highly recommended in explaining the basics and advanced features of what you offer, and you can also use it to provide a step-by-step guide on how your product or service rendered can help your target audience.
Honest Reviews
This is a method of determining a brand or enterprise’s credible status where several users get to give unbiased opinions about an app product or service. This may boost or reduce marketing and sales because people are moved by testimonials provided by other customers.
Using my friend Alexander as an example, he always conducts in-depth research about a new product or service before trying it for himself. During the process of gathering helpful information, he’ll use diverse social media channels, and forums to gather unbiased reviews about this product or service before trying them out.
Just like Alexander, most people are keen on making research before making purchases or trying an app or service. While you strive to make research about a competitive brand, they may decide to choose your brand if other customers opine that your firm is exceptional.
Personalized greetings
This goes a long way in improving consumer retention as people love to be celebrated and appreciated. The human mind is designed to remember special occurrences, which explains why most firms tend to celebrate their customers on their birthdays or during the holiday season to show them how they care.
Another method of retaining customers is by appreciating them at least once a month. This can be achieved through phone calls, SMS, and emails where you will simply thank them for choosing your brand over other available brands, and you may further care to channel their comments about their experiences with your product or service rendered.
Reward programs
This is another mode of appreciating your customers through incentive offers for continued purchases. For example, you may decide to offer gift discounts and special rewards to every customer after they make their 25th sale, or after they spend up to a specific amount on purchases in your store or company.
This will further as a mode of attraction to your business, and you will keep recording high sales compared to your competitors. Another method of rewarding your loyal customer is by offering at least 2% cash back on every purchase made. This means if you decide to offer a 3% chargeback on every deposit or sale, your customers will get to save even while they spend.
Launch a community forum
This is an untapped marketing strategy because most business firms tend to overlook its potential. Giant enterprises like Apple offer a forum where customers get to share ideas on a particular product, talk about the product specifications, and how it works, and further give a helpful guide on how to solve errors.
Having a forum for your brand allows your customer care representatives to offer tips and answers to queries by potential and existing customers. You can further create more awareness of your product and brand with your forum, and since most enterprises are yet to identify the importance of having a community forum, it will give you an edge over your competitor.
It also builds trust between your brand and potential customers since they can read honest reviews from real people about your product or service on your forums.
Choose a preferred mode of communication
Keeping your customers informed about your innovations, promotional offers, and reward programs will have them glued to your brand. You can achieve this by constantly reaching out to them through two or more communication channels such as email and telephone channels.
Choosing to contact your customers through multiple mediums will incorporate your brand in their minds, and they’ll always think of you whenever they want to make relevant purchases. You can get to ask customers to choose their preferred communication channels and what time they preferred to be contacted.
Knowing the right channel of communication, and the right time to contact them will build a strong bond between you and your customers since you’ve put them in control of how they want to be contacted, and the appropriate time to reach out.
Ensure optimum satisfaction of queries
This involves gathering feedback about a complaint or inquiries from your customer. This may be achieved by offering a short survey to customers to ask how they are satisfied with the answers or tips provided by the customer care representative in charge of handling their complaints and questions if they have any other complaints, and how they feel about the whole process.
Getting this feedback will make your customer feel more valuable while tackling issues that bother them. It will also promote more communication between you and your employees since they trust the team to always deliver helpful tips and information when needed.
Branding
Branding your product or service makes it easy for your existing customers to remember you. The branding process may include offering customized freebies to customers after every purchase, having your catchy brand logo, and name imprinted on all of your products, etc.
This will make it easier for your customers to remember you whenever they plan on making relevant purchases or if when trying to recommend your product or service. Branding is also a helpful marketing strategy because potential customers can track your business through your branded products.
Organizing events
This is an excellent method of showcasing your brand to the general public where products are displayed alongside demos on how to use them. A catchy presentation will have your customers glued to you, and also help harness potential customers from such an event.
Your brand may further sponsor other events in your community or state as a whole in order to boost visibility. It is recommended that you choose a complimentary event to sponsor. For example, if you offer the sale of books, you can sponsor educational events such as debates, spelling bees, etc.
In conclusion, during your quest of building a healthy relationship between your brand and customers, you’ll find the methods of improving consumer retention helpful in your business and thereby boosting sales and visibility.
