Repeat After Me: RETENTION
How are we retaining our Customers?
Now Say: CUSTOMER LIFETIME VALUE
Let those 3 words ring in your mind. What is the Lifetime Value of a Customer? CLV represents the total dollar amount that each customer is worth to your business. Now that we have established how important Retention is; let’s talk about a few tips for increasing it.
Tip #1 – Proactive Customer Support
For happy customers, great customer service needs to be the norm, but exceeding expectations is a powerful way to get your customers talking (after all, a recent survey found that Americans tell an average of nine people about good customer service experiences). The never ending pursuit of excellence to keep customers so satisfied that they tell others how well they were treated when doing business with you. This one is easy! The better the service you provide, the more customers you’re going to retain, and the more loyal they will be.
Tip #2 – Scheduled Frequent Communication
Your communications are fundamental to any customer retention techniques. However, this has to be planned out. You have to provide a strategy for how often you want to contact existing customers and decide upon what communication type should be used. (Email, newsletter, blog) The exact frequency you choose will depend on your industry and even seasonality but you must have a plan and you must communicate.
Tip #3 – Request Feedback
All the best customer retention strategies require constant feedback from the customer to establish what is working and what is not working. Surveys and questionnaires are a perfect way of doing this. Both of these methods gather information from your customer. When you get a complaint see it for what it is….. A Gift! 96% of unhappy customers don’t complain. The just walk away, and you’ll never know why. When you incorporate questionnaires and surveys it gives your customer a place to complain and share their experiences with you. When customers have the opportunity to complain/share they are giving you a gift; they are still talking to you and giving you another opportunity to return them to a state of satisfaction.
The consequences of customer retention will compound over time – and that can either be a very good or a very bad outcome; so be on purpose with your strategies for customer retention. These few tips should just get the juices flowing in creating that strategy. The resulting effect on long term profit and growth ….. Priceless.
