6 Customer Retention Strategies You Need to Implement

Customer retention essentially involves deterring customers from purchasing goods and services from your competitors. It’s important that you have a number of strategies in place that’ll work to keep the clients you have. 

Although, most businesses will focus entirely on gaining new customers as opposed to retaining the ones they already have. This can often cause companies to chase their tails in terms of a decent client base and it can be a relatively expensive task.

According to Commbox, 44% of businesses focus purely on customer acquisition, 18% focus on customer retention and satisfaction alone, whereas 40% of those asked put a fair and equal emphasis on both. So if you’re wanting to improve your customer retention, then here are a few ways in which you can do it.

Surprise customers with complimentary gifts and discounts

It’s a well known fact that customers like to feel appreciated. One of the ways in which you can show your gratitude is through exclusive discounts and thoughtful trinkets. Perhaps offer a certain percentage off a popular product line or send them a small piece of jewellery or a badge through the post to thank them for their loyalty.

Often, businesses will include a note to accompany the surprise gift, ensuring it fits in with their brand, style and overall tone of voice. Sending your customers a card on their birthday or at Christmas is also a great way to let them know that they haven’t been forgotten about – it just makes their experience with you more personal.

Provide unrivalled customer service every single time

A study, according to Commbox, concluded that 75% of businesses believe that they’re ‘customer-centric’, but only 30% of their customers actually agree with them. In fact, 80% of customers will be so dissatisfied with the customer service they’ve received that they’d be willing to go elsewhere and pay more for it in order to experience improved customer services.

If you’re wanting to up your customer service game, then here are a few things you can do:

• Offer consistency – clients should always receive the same high level of customer service no matter how you communicate with them, whether it be on the phone, via email or in person

• Always be available – customers should always be able to contact you, so make it clear that, no matter what it is they need, you’ll always be on hand to help them

• Assess their needs and offer a solution – make sure your customers are always provided with a relevant, more-than-satisfactory solution regardless of what it is they require

Conduct a customer survey

Customer surveys can be an incredibly valuable tool for businesses, no matter what industry you’re in. They’ll help you to identify what’s working within your company and what isn’t from a customer view point. Although you’ll never be able to keep every single one of your customers happy, it’ll certainly help when it comes to impressive customer retention efforts.

If you’ve never conducted a customer survey before, then here a few things customer surveys should have:

• A list of multiple choice questions
• Free text answer fields
• Simple, clear questions
• No more than 10-12 questions

Look to send your customer surveys out every six months or so. Many companies will ask for feedback once a year in order to gain as much information as possible, but it really depends on the size of your client base and how much feedback you’d like all at once.

Ensure customers are well informed

There are a number of things your customers should be kept updated about, including:

• Company developments
• Changes to the management team
• New products or services that have become available
• Recent partnerships that have been formed
• Milestones the business has hit

You’ll be able to let your customers know in a monthly newsletter or you could even have a blog included on your website where specific articles about the aforementioned points could be written and displayed for everyone to see and share in your every success.

Use gamification to your advantage

This is a very popular customer retention strategy for many businesses. It basically involves offering discount codes and money-off vouchers for referring their friends. But that customer will only receive their reward once their referred friend has made a purchase or booked a service. 

Loyalty cards and redeemable points vouchers are also incredibly successful, ensuring your customers are rewarded for continuing to use your company. It also gives them an incentive to stay with you, as they’ll feel like their earned points will be wasted if they don’t carry on purchasing your products or using your services.

Some of the things you could offer with a fully-stamped loyalty card or a set number of points include:

• A free consultation
• 30-minutes of your service for free
• A reasonable percentage off a product or service that costs above a certain amount
• A free gift, such as a badge

Make it personal

You’ll naturally collect customer data as you go along, but this can be used to enhance their overall experience with you. Some of the things you’ll be able to find out using their data could include:

• How they’d prefer to be contacted
• What they’ve bought previously
• Previous interactions they’ve had with you
• How often they make a transaction

Using the previous information, you’ll be able to tailor their experience to ensure they always come back to you for a personal, bespoke service every single time.