Are you looking for ways your business can improve customer retention? Then this guide is for you. Acquiring new customers takes a lot of effort, and the last thing a company wishes is to lose them. Furthermore, retaining existing customers is much cheaper than acquiring new ones. Also, customer retention increases your business profitability. Customer relationship management, loyalty offers, and rewards, product experience management (PXM), customer loyalty programs, and
product information management(PIM) are some customer retention tactics and strategies that can encourage buyers to return. This article will enlighten you on the four ways your business can use to retain your customers.
What is Customer Retention?
It is the ability of a company to engage one-time buyers and turn them into loyal customers. It means deterring customers from switching to a competitor or keeping them engaged with your brand to prevent lapse. Customer retention helps a business maintain its customer base and gain loyalty and a competitive edge.
How to improve customer Retention
Retaining customers is a vital aspect of a business strategy. It helps your business to stay competitive and increase in profit. There are several ideas and approaches that a company can execute to make their customers stay with their brand. Here are some of the customer retention strategies that can help.
#1. Respond to customers issues promptly
One of the ways you can implement to retain customers is by responding to customers’ issues instantly. Sending quick responses is key to earning customers’ trust and loyalty. A longer response time gives a company a bad reputation making it challenging to convert one-time buyers to customers. Research shows that 59% of customers are most likely to purchase from a brand that responds to queries in less than a minute.
The best way you can up your response time is by offering 24-hour support, i.e., through a live chat. Doing so makes the customers feel you are there for them and share their values. Also, it portrays reassurance and professionalism, which is a crucial part of customer retention.
#2. Customer loyalty programs
A robust customer loyalty program is essential to building a loyal customer base. Rewarding your customers with perks and rewards for doing business with you is a great way to keep them contented. When they are happy and excited, they will likely remain loyal, always choosing to buy from you over competitors.
A well-executed loyalty program is a win-win offering. It fosters a good relationship between a brand and its customers and encourages them to spend more. That way, the company benefits from additional recurring revenue. For the program's effectiveness, personalize rewards to fit customers’ preferences and interests. Also, offer programs that reinforce your core business goals.
Some loyalty programs you can execute in your business to retain customers include spend-based programs, points programs, birthday programs, and more.
#3. Personalize your customer experience
Personalization is another excellent way of improving customer retention. Personalization uses customers’ data stored in the information system that you later use to create a different, unique experience between the brand and an individual.
Research shows that about 80% of customers are most likely to do business with a company that provides personalized experiences. When a company adds a personal touch on all channels that can be personalized, from emails and the way you package the products to live chat and reward programs, it makes customers feel like the company is trying to understand their needs and wants.
Personalization builds upon the foundational emotions that establish a robust customer-brand relationship that drives customer loyalty. There is plenty of personalization software like PXM software you can use to create an end-to-end personalized experience for your customers.
#4. Retargeting
Retargeting is one of the best and most effective strategies to help with customer retention. Retargeting, also known as remarketing, is a form of online advertising that involves reaching out to lapsed users based on the previous intent with your brand.
It targets audiences who have visited your webpage or social media platforms and shown interest in making a purchase. Retargeting encourages such users to return and complete or repeat purchases, improving customer loyalty. The best thing about retargeting is that you can conduct it using several marketing channels such as emails, Facebook, Google Ads, and more.
Customers are a crucial part of any business; without them, it cannot be successful. Although many companies overlook the value of customer retention in the chase for new customers, retention is vital. Customer retention is cheaper than acquiring new customers. It increases your business’s profitability while saving on sales and marketing costs. You can enhance customer retention using several strategies. Responding to customers’ queries instantly, retargeting, personalization, and loyalty programs are some strategies that can improve customer retention rates.
