According to Marketing Metrics, old customers have at least a 60% chance of returning to your company to buy another product. However, new customers only have a 20% chance of buying your product.
While it’s always important to attract new customers, you should also be focused on keeping the ones that you do have. Visit Forbrukerguiden for great articles on how to make the best choices as a consumer.
But what are some effective customer retention strategies? We’ll break down a few you can try!
1. Make Sure You Have a Cause
One thing that many consumers care about now is to ensure that they’re buying from a good company.
For example, some companies are dedicated to donating and raising money for cancer foundations. Others are devoted to being environmentally friendly. Some are also devoted to improving other’s lives by donating products or money to charity.
What is something that you’re passionate about and makes sense for your brand? In order for people to believe that you actually believe in your cause, it has to be real.
But if you can find a cause that aligns with you and your customer’s passions, they’ll be more willing to come back and support your brand.
2. Let Customers Know About Improvements
As you grow as a business, you should be making improvements to how you’re operating your business.
This might mean improvements in how you communicate with your customers, upgrading to a dunning management service, or opening new stores.
Either way, make sure that you reach out to your customers and let them know that you’re still making improvements to improve their experience. Not only will this help you stay relevant, but it will also make your customers feel like you care about making sure they have the best experience with your brand.
3. Create a Customer Loyalty Program
If you have a lot of customers who are dedicated to your brand, you can reward them with a customer loyalty program in which they can get free perks or rewards.
A loyalty program thanks them for being committed to your brand while also incentivizing them to sign up and come back. It also benefits you because you can offer them deals for shopping more at your store while also rewarding them with perks to spend more money at your store.
4. Offer Surprises
One way to keep customers coming back is to always keep them guessing. When are you going to send them their next coupon, and how much will it be for? Will they get anything for their birthday?
When offering surprises, you’ll have to do a little bit of planning on your end, but you can’t let your customers know what’s up your sleeve.
They don’t have to be big or costly surprises. In fact, it could be something as simple as handwriting them a thank you note and putting it with one of their purchases. It could also be a surprise coupon or extra bonus at check out. It could be a free product with a minimum purchase that you surprise them with at checkout.
All of these things will make them wonder what the next surprise will be, and then they’ll keep coming back to buy your service or product.
5. Send Personalized Messages
One thing that most large businesses don’t do is send personalized messages to show their appreciation for their customers.
So make sure that you take time out of your day to show it. The best way to do it is with hand-written messages that address your customer by their names. Try to include as many details as you can about them to show that they’re important to you and not just one of your millions of customers.
While you may not be able to do this when you become a larger business, it can help you, in the beginning, to start growing your large customer base.
6. Build Trust
You also need to build trust with your customers.
Even if they’re just buying products, you both are entering into a business agreement, and you want to make sure that they trust you.
You can keep this trust by offering a product that is good value and give them customer service that they can rely on.
If they really do trust you, they’ll tell all their friends and family members about your business which gives you even more customers to try to entice back.
7. Use Customer Surveys
You should always ask your customers to fill out a brief survey. Not only does it help to build their engagement, but it shows them that you’re willing to listen to the criticisms they have. Visit Qualtrics for more information on surveys.
However, many customers won’t actually fill out the survey because they don’t have time or because they don’t think it will actually change anything.
You could offer incentives for them to take the survey, but you can also show them that you care about what they have to say. Make sure you go over every survey.
If a customer comments about how poor the customer service at the store was, make sure that you reach out to them and let them know that you’re going to make sure that doesn’t happen again. Visit sites like https://delighted.com/nps-survey for additional guidance.
Discover More Customer Retention Strategies You Could Try
These are only a few of the popular customer retention strategies that you should try, but there are many more out there!
We know that running a business can be stressful and overwhelming, but thankfully you don’t have to do it all by yourself.
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