Companies that thrive retain their current customers while attracting new ones. You can’t see growth without the right combination of the two. However, a lot of brands fail to develop a relationship with their customers. People don’t feel loyal to the business and bounce to competitors or other solutions.
How Do You Improve Customer Retention?
The rate of customer retention can vary by industry, with some niches encouraging more loyalty than others. For example, media companies and professional services have approximately 84% retention rate–hospitality has the lowest.
The last few years have been an unusual time in the world’s history. The pandemic shifted people’s priorities and made some business owners change the way they do things. Many places struggle with employee shortage and trying to improve customer service at the same time. The good news is that you can improve your numbers no matter what category you fall under. Here are our favorite tips to reach customers in 2022.
1. Use CRM Software
Customer relationship management is key to building loyal clients. Use software to automate onboarding, let segments of your audience know about new products and reach out on special occasions.
You can also see if someone is ordering regularly and suddenly stops so you can have a sales rep get in touch with them.
2. Make Them Feel Safe
Customers will sometimes leave a service because they worry about their personal data remaining confidential. Data breaches can cost your company a lot of money. An incident averages about $4.24 million in expenses. Even if your breach doesn’t cost you monetarily, it will likely cause you to lose customers, which will cost you future revenue.
3. Invest in your client onboarding process
Any business that works with clients knows that customer retention is key to long-term success. One of the most critical factors in retaining customers is ensuring a smooth and positive onboarding experience. When customers have a good onboarding experience, they’re more likely to stay with your company for the long haul.
One way to improve your onboarding process is to invest in software that helps streamline the process. Flatfile is a great option for businesses that want to improve their customer onboarding experience. Flatfile software alternatives help automate data collection and provide a simple and user-friendly interface that makes it easy for customers to submit their information.
Investing in your client onboarding process is an essential factor in customer retention. Investing in software like Flatfile can help streamline the onboarding process and provide a positive experience for your customers.
4. Communicate Your UVP
What is your brand’s unique value proposition (UVP)? What do you offer customers that no other company does? Once you understand the perks to doing business with you over another business, you can make sure your customers understand the value they’re getting.
Send out testimonials and case studies about how you’re helping different clients. Send your customers a graph showing how well your service as a software performed or improvements you made in a physical product or service.
5. Show Your Emotions
Don’t be afraid to be frank with your customers about your hopes, dreams and struggles to build your business. You want them to feel they are part of the process and connect with you emotionally.
In a survey of consumers, researchers found around 26.4% of consumers felt even more loyal to their chosen brands if the company addressed their pain points. To really pinpoint what they need, you have to understand the problem and what emotions drive them to seek a solution.
For example, if you run a security company, people will often install alarms to protect what’s precious to them, such as children or pets. However, what emotion drives their desire? It is usually fear of the unknown or increased crime in the area, etc. Tap into the underlying emotion and you make a stronger connection with your customers.
6. Give Without Getting
Don’t constantly sell to your customers. Instead, offer them something of value without asking anything in return. A recent example can be seen through the Jordan Page Company. They released an app so users can access their articles, community and advice. The app is completely free and offers a way for families to save money on food and other costs.
What can you offer your customers that benefits them? Consider giving away content for free. They’ll see you as their go-to source and will reward you with referrals.
Become Customer Centered
Customer retention improves when the entire company has a mindset of focusing on customer happiness. Your service agents, sales staff and even creators will all think about what benefits the client and start to take on an attitude that reflects just how important regular buyers are to company growth.
When you can communicate how stronger customer relationships benefit your employees, customers and you, you’ll have a company culture focused on client happiness and retention will improve automatically.
Eleanor is editor of Designerly Magazine. Eleanor was the creative director and occasional blog writer at a prominent digital marketing agency before becoming her own boss in 2018. She lives in Philadelphia with her husband and dog, Bear.
