FOUR out of five consumers will leave a company’s website and purchase elsewhere because the user interface is difficult or browsing about products on your website is complicated. This is why you need an effective retention marketing strategy.
Are you aware that acquiring new customers costs five times as much as retaining existing customers?
Your users will benefit from receiving blast emails about promotions daily, so why not send them to all of them? Is this your retention strategy? Then it would be a good idea to read on.
Growth without solid retention is failed attempt to fill the air in the balloon with holes in it.
The graph below shows that only two out of ten users who downloaded Android apps continued using them after three days.
Which message does this convey? It was convincing for the user to click “buy now”, “subscribe”, or “sign up”. Your site or app may have received some traffic, but not from everybody. Would you say your product proved useful to them? Do you expect to increase revenue as a result? As amusing as it may sound, the answer isn’t ‘acquiring two customers’. It’s keeping an existing customer.
Further, according to the report, only 5% of those users who had passed this ‘3-day stage’ remained on the site after completing their desired goal (which could be a purchase, subscription, or sign-up).
Considering how expensive it has become to acquire a new customer because of increasingly fierce competition, any churn of your existing customers is considered a major loss when looked at in relation to the lifetime value of the customer.
The company didn’t pay attention to bringing back customers, which created customer churn. A product may appear attractive to users. They would use it once to take advantage of an introductory offer, and then move on to a competitor or abandon the product altogether. There was no reason for users to keep using the product, so they left.
So how do you keep your current customers engaged and satisfied while creating a customer retention strategy?
It’s not complicated at all. Increase the profitability of the existing customers rather than spending countless hours acquiring new customers.
In Harvard Business Review they have mentioned, that by increasing customer retention rates by 5%, companies increase profits by 25% to 95%.
You must perform far beyond your customers’ expectations if you want to keep them happy. In this way, one’s process may not apply to another’s. Yet, we have analyzed the best practices that many companies have followed and identified a few common ones.
- Surveys and churn metrics should be tracked –
It is impossible to fix something you do not understand. Using customer surveys is an excellent way to create a sense of belonging for your customers and provide them with the opportunity to provide feedback. With an analysis of the reasons for customer churn, together with the number of customers who leave, by taking their feedback into account, you can build better products and services. To reduce churn and increase retention, use a template that stores and analyses qualitative and quantitative feedback. Then, after analyzing the churn report and customer survey data, you can improve user experience by looking for trends in customer behavior. Using customer surveys, the marketing team must develop marketing plans that will focus on the customer’s preferred features.
Keeping your surveys short, rewarding, and interesting is important, as Zendesk found.
- Communicate with your customers and listen to their needs:
When dealing with a Contact Centre, how often has a customer service representative interrupted your conversation? Whenever a CSR has not fully understood the problem, repeating the customers’ concerns or questions can be the easiest solution. Active listening is when your CSRs stop, listen, repeat, confirm, and respond.
Today’s consumer is available on multiple devices and channels. To reach the greatest number of people, we must use all the modes of communication. It’s important to re-engage customers who have not contacted you for an extended period. To do this effectively, a platform that promotes engagement through many channels is necessary. A platform that allows you to effectively communicate with your users at their most convenient times. It helps you understand your users’ usage patterns. Keeping track of customer communications can be done using a communication calendar. It lets you know when existing customers last interacted with your brand and alerts you if they haven’t. Give customers the option of contacting you via email, social media, Skype, online chat, etc. To make your customers’ contact with you as hassle-free as possible, make sure you use every tool at your disposal.
Ensure that you respond promptly when your customers contact you. Make it easy for your potential customers to find you.
- Build a loyalty program and develop a community –
Customers who are loyal to your business should feel appreciated. Wouldn’t it be nice if you could show your appreciation by offering a special deal or loyalty program?
You have plenty of options available to encourage customer loyalty and retain customers for your small business, whether you decide to use a game, or a point-based system. In light of research, it has been found that customers tend to become more loyal to a brand when you give them milestones to reach while using your product. On the other side, Your customers need to feel like they’re part of something if you want to keep them loyal. It is easy to create a community for your customers on social media thanks to the many platforms available. Taking part in community events and being active on several social media platforms (check out our Facebook, Linkedin, and Twitter accounts). These are some ways companies can engage in their communities. The methods you can use to make your prospects and customers feel part of your community are countless, whether it’s a Facebook review or a one-on-one conversation.
The summary of this is, it isn’t enough for customers to just expect reasonable prices and reliable service. It is essential that they receive customized experiences designed to meet their individual interests. Brands that cannot deliver personalized experiences will lose their market.
Discover the type of customers who will be interested in your product & service then engage with them and guide them to purchase last but not least anticipate their needs constantly and give them a reason to come back (Retention).
Fortunately, businesses have numerous options for executing their customer retention plans. Let’s talk! Picking the right ones for your company and audience is just as imperative. Your repeat purchases and loyal customer base will grow once you achieve this.