6 strategies that will help in customer retention

Acquiring new customers is definitely more expensive than retaining an old one, which is why customer retention is critical for any business. The main difference between a business that sustainably grows long-term, and one that exhausts and dies, depends on

• Making customers happy
• Reducing customer effort
• Excellent customer service

If you can master the art of keeping your customers happy, you’re sure to keep them. Below are

6 customer retention strategies that you can start using right away to grow your business:

1) Customer survey:

Tracking customer satisfaction can definitely help you measure customer satisfaction. Few prominent organisations have Net Promoter surveys every three months where they ask a couple of simple questions to the customers. Based on them they categorise the customers as promoters (high rating), passives (medium rating) or detractors (low rating). This gives the organisations, clear directions on how they should work on elevating customer happiness.

2) Proactive customer support:

Majority of customers who have issues with your product, will not give you the same feedback. It has been observed that for every customer who complains about a product, there are 30 others who won’t say a word, they would just rather leave. In such cases, a proactive customer support that would find and solve issues before losing customer loyalty is crucial. Customer support emails come handy.

3) Customer service delight:

Apart from the regular customer support services to keep your customers happy, unique once-in- while surprises, that exceeds expectations is a powerful way to turn your customers into brand advocates. It could be a magnetic reward or just a hand-written thank you note to show your appreciation to them, both will enhance customer delight.

4) Strengthen your value:

You work hard to deliver value proposition to your customers through your products or services. Your customers should definitely see and realise that. So a small reminder never hurts. A psychological phenomenon called “reciprocity” entails that if someone does something good for us, we shall probably do the same. For example when waiters brought some candies along with the bill the tips became more generous. Therefore, always try to surprise your customers through “candies” (like in the example mentioned before), or just by reminding them of the value you deliver.

5) Make yourself easily reachable:

It is evident that when a customer wants to get help or asks you a question, they’re already having a harrowed and troublesome experience. Therefore, don’t add to their woes by making it difficult for them to reach you. You should be easily reachable, by either prominently displaying instructions for getting in touch, or with a support widget on every page that’ll let the customer get help from anywhere using just a click.

6) Make the customer feel cared for:

Empathy is the core of customer service skills and it surely makes a big difference what approach you adopt in customer support. Truly empathising and understanding the customer’s pain will certainly help in making the customers feel cared for and enhance customer retention. Remember to use the right words though, because words and tone can make or break the impact you want to have on your customer. Keep in mind to hear, empathise, resolve, diagnose by getting to the root of the problem, which are pivotal to customer retention.