5 Customer Retention Strategy Every Business Owner Must Learn From

5 Customer Retention Strategy Every Business Owner Must Learn From

Customers are the life of any business in all industries, they are your greatest assets. The three most important goals of every business are Leads, Customers, and Sales. Without customers, your business is as good as not existing at all. As a business owner, you may think you’re your own boss, but in real fact, your customers are. Most business owners are focused on getting leads and sales that they neglect the customers and their retention. No matter how much your customers like you and what you offer, research shows that nearly half of customers are willing to go with other brands. They may like what you’re offering, but if new offer comes from someone else and it looks good, they are likely to go with it and leave you hanging.

It is important to get new customers per time, but much more is it necessary that you know how to keep them and keep growing them. As a business owner, you do not have to lose old customers to get new ones, you can keep maintaining the old ones and also get new ones. You can’t always rely on customers who only stumble on your website, patronize you once and have no mind of coming back. It is your job to know how to retain them when they come. There’s no limit to the power of a loyal customer in your business.

Retaining your customers is very important for the success of your business. It is no doubt that converting leads to customers is a hard process, but your efforts will be worth it if you pay more attention on retention. If you can’t retain customers, you will be losing money, and this is not good for your business. Research from Marketing Wizdom shows that about 20% of customers are lost by an average business yearly, due to lack of mutual relationship. There’s no joy in converting leads to customers and then you lose them in the long run.

Losing customers is one thing that should stop in every business, and to help with this, we have compiled a list of 5 customer retention strategies that you should learn from.

1. Customer service surprises

Surprises have a way of getting to the heart of any human being. We all love to get surprises, and your customers are not exempted. To keep and maintain your customers, you can think of a way to provide them with valuable things without their knowledge. Surprises are supposed to be just that – surprises, not something the other party is expecting. You don’t have to go way overboard with it, just something that shows how much you value and appreciate them. When you go personal on each customer, they feel loved and know that they are recognized. Go beyond the normal services you offer to make your customers love and trust you the more. Even health wise, scientists say that surprises are good for the brain, and helps to bring pleasure. Surprising your customers make them feel they are a part of your big vision, and their patronages do not go unnoticed. It also makes them leave nice feedback about your brand and products, and this is something you can’t just get anywhere.

2. Build trust through relationships

If there is no trust in any relationship, it dies. The same goes for a business too, you are in a relationship with your customers, and if there is no trust, the business dies. You have to consciously build trust with your customers to keep your business going. People always prefer to buy from, and do business with whoever they like and trust. It goes beyond just knowing that you offer great services, they want to be able to trust you as well, and you shouldn’t trade that for anything.

According to a report by EY and Forbes Insights, “marketers should use data to build trust with customers.” When building trust with customers, you can use the customer behavior data to provide value in your product. This will leave them just accepting your recommendations. Customers can go any length with you once they find out that you can be trusted. They give you their loyalty and commitment, and recommend you to others. This means once you can focus on making your customers trust you, you don’t need to spend much on advertisement because they’ll gladly do that for you.

3. Take advantage of technology

Technology keeps improving every day to make interacting with your customers easier. Use automation to re-engage your customers even after they have left your office physically. Automation allows some of your operations to be handled automatically by a software. If you have a large customer base, you can’t always keep up with them all, but you can do that with technology. Keep your brand name fresh in the mind of your customers through automation. It helps you to be ahead of your competition.

Automation makes it easy to send mails or notifications to your customers without stress. You can’t afford to lose the trust your customers have in you, and so you have to always deliver and since we’re only humans who can fail at any time, automation helps you with that.

 

Read Also: How to start a POS business in Nigeria

 

4. Take advantage of customer feedback surveys

Surveys can be boring, but customers like it as it helps them air their minds on your products and services. Customers are always honest with their feedback, so you can be sure it is what they get that they will talk about. Feedback from customers helps you know how you’re doing as a brand, and how they feel about what you offer. When customers know that they can always give their opinions and it will be taken into consideration, they tend to sincerely open up, and even trust you the more. As a business owner, you have to be ready to receive all kinds of feedback, and if it is a negative one you get, just know you still have work to do. Make sure to take a step towards the feedback your customers give.

5. Keep your promises

“Promise is a debt” is not just a cliché, it truly is. You shouldn’t promise what you can’t offer as a brand, and once you promise, make sure to deliver and over-deliver. A research says that if a customer is not satisfied with a product, he is likely to tell 20 other people about their negative experience with the brand. You shouldn’t play on the intelligence of your customers by over-promising and then you can’t deliver in the long run. It is better to come up with surprises than to promise what you can’t offer.

Promises increase the expectations of people, and once you raise the hopes of your customers, they are at a very delicate stage and shattering that expectation can shatter your brand. Do not make promises out of emotions to make your customers happy, they surely won’t be happy when they find out that you can’t deliver. Customers can be aggressive when disappointed by a brand or a company, sure you don’t want that for yourself. As simple as delivering is, if you promise to deliver in 20 minutes and you didn’t make it till 30 minutes, you are gradually losing the trust of your customers, which will eventually make them leave.

 

Hope you enjoy this article?

Share your thoughts in the comment session.

Contact us today for your business consultancy and business advisory services. We can help you fine tune your idea, structure your business, market your business, train your staff, consult on your retirement plan, coach you for financial success. We also write business plan and help with fund raising strategies and Grant applications. We can help you start, grow and expand your business.

Call or WhatsApp us now on 081 0563 6015, 080 7635 9735, 08113205312 or send email to dayohub@gmail.com  and we will solve any of your business problem.