Keeping your customers - a business guide
Customer retention is a big issue for most firms. The rise of the online comparison site, coupled with tough economic conditions over the past 18 months, has meant that more and more customers are shopping around to find the best deals.
While this makes keeping customers a difficult job, firms cannot give up on boosting their retention figures. For many firms, repeat custom will be the most profitable type in the long-term; it requires less marketing and quite often less resource to convert existing customers compared to new ones.
Unfortunately, you will have to accept that in business you are unlikely to be able to keep every one of your customers. However, by following a number of key steps focused on keeping the customer happy, you could certainly retain a higher percentage.
Focus on your customer
Your focus must always be on the customer and ensuring that they have be best experience possible when purchasing your products or services. After-sales support is also important to ensure that any time an existing customer contacts the company with queries or issues your customer service team are responding in a swift, polite manner.
No matter how strong your product offering might be there is no guarantee that customers will return based on this alone. Therefore it is important to consider ways to make their experience as straightforward as possible, leaving them with a good impression of your company.
Staff training
Your customer service and sales teams are effectively the “face” or “voice” of your organisation and are likely to be a customer’s first point of contact with the business. Here are a few key points to consider:
1. Good staff training is essential to ensure that the customer’s first impression of your company is a good one. What you perceive as being minor, might mean much more to your customer than you may think.
2. Encourage your staff to listen to your customers to help identify problem areas and issues that may arise, training them to respond with due diligence and speed.
3. Adapt staff training to suit the needs and requirements of your customers.
Engaging with your customer
It is important for a company to continue to engage the customer after the initial sales. This not only builds up a good image of the company and its values, but also makes the customer feel valued.
Many web-based businesses like to keep their customers up to date on new products, special incentives and other latest news by sending out newsletters and emails to ensure they are kept in the loop.
Incentivise
Try offering your customers incentives to retain their loyalty. This could be anything from reduced rates to a loyalty programme that rewards customers for sticking with your company. Further possible incentives include:
1. Free branded gifts as parts of a promotion to not only retain customer loyalty and create brand awareness as well.
2. Offer free newsletters, guides or white papers to help inform your customer about your products or services.
3. Offer eCoupons or eVouchers as part of an email marketing campaign that gives discounts on complementary products or services from an affiliated company. Not only could you profit from an affiliated relationship but you could also retain that customer for future business.
