Attracting customers to your business is only half the battle. If you can’t sustain their interest once they’re buying from you, there’s no assurance they’ll still be relying on your products or services in a year’s time.
That’s why retention strategies are so important. They target your customers in ways that ensure they continue to enjoy your business, so the thought of leaving you doesn’t even cross your mind. How do you pull these off effectively, though?
It’s worth trying out these five strategies to see if you can keep everyone on your side.
Keep Things Surprising
A good way to keep customers on their toes is to ensure they never truly know what you’re going to come out with. If you throw a few surprises their way now and again, they’ll never think of your business as stale.
Obviously, your surprises need to add something to the customer experience if they’re going to work. After all, you could shock everyone by suddenly lifting your prices, but that won’t have the effect you’re going for.
Depending on the size of the business and what money you have to work with, there may not be much room to go crazy. That doesn’t matter, though. There’s plenty of ways to surprise people without breaking the bank. For instance, something as simple as handwritten and personalized notes of thanks can work wonders.
Find Out What They Want
Customer retention naturally increases when people feel like they’re getting what they want out of your business. How are you supposed to know precisely what everyone wants, though?
Easy – just ask them through customized online feedback form. By connecting with your customers semi-regularly to find out what they want, you can ensure you’re continually improving the business to meet those demands. Whether they’re looking for 24/7 availability, faster responses, or more interaction, the only way you’ll be able to help is by finding out what matters most to them.
You might not have the capacity to make all the suggested improvements. However, you don’t need to meet every expectation for retention to improve. As long as you make some changes – ideally the ones most frequently recommended – it will benefit your business.
Ensure That Content Is Engaging
The internet makes it incredibly easy to connect with customers nowadays. Through your website and social media, you can frequently put content out there that speaks to others and shows them why you’re worthwhile. Of course, this content only works if it’s engaging.
Whoever you have in charge of these online outputs, it’s essential that they understand the importance of this. They need to know how to produce content that’s fun, insightful, and easy to interact with. It’s no good just posting a load of information without any personality because, even if it’s relevant, it won’t keep customers engaged.
There are things you can do to make this easier, such as using the WordPress email plugin. It’s good to keep customers up-to-date with email newsletters, and the plugin allows you to design eye-catching ones that will grab a reader’s attention. It also makes it incredibly easy to produce signup forms, so customers should have no trouble getting involved.
Deliver More Than You Promise
It’s rare for customers to be happy when a business doesn’t deliver on what it promised. Likewise, it’s rare for them to be unhappy when said business goes above and beyond to deliver more than they promised.
While you might be tempted to just try and focus on giving the customer what you promised, it’s always worth exceeding expectations where possible. That might mean adjusting your promise to be less than what you know you can achieve so that it’s always easy to beat it.
However, this can be a risky move, so you’ll need to think carefully before going through with it. Telling a customer that it’ll take a week to complete a job that you’ll actually get done in a day could prevent them from going with you in the first place. You’ll need to know what your customers will and won’t accept before promising them anything.
Openly Acknowledge Customer Complaints
Plenty of businesses try to avoid complaints and pretend they don’t exist. That’s pretty easy to do if only out of every 100 people is upset about something.
However, ignoring these people is never a good idea. Not only do you lose their business, but you risk them badmouthing you to friends and family, thereby losing potential customers. With social media being as popular as it is, one complaint online could have significant backlash.
That’s why it’s worth acknowledging grievances, dealing with them immediately, and demonstrating that you’ll improve from them. If you handle their complaints the right way, you won’t just satisfy the people who were upset, you’ll also show the rest of your customers that you’re dedicated to doing better. That’ll ensure that they stick around for longer.
Repeat business from customers is ideal, but it’s only possible if you use the right retention strategies. The five presented here should do well to maintain people’s interest in you, and there’s plenty more ideas out there to help you take things even further.
5 Smart Ways To Build And Maintain Customer Retention
