4 Most effective customer retention strategies

You must have heard about customer retention many times. It’s repeated over and over again that it’s easier to convince your customer to purchase again instead of looking for a new one. However, when it comes to customer retention, it is great that its importance is so underlined everywhere as it helps you work miracles for your business.

Why your existing customers are so important

There are many reasons why and some of them you will discover only when you are taking care of your regular customers. But now let me quote three of the most general and important ones:

1. Improving conversion rates

As the existing customers are those who have already decided to trust you and purchase from you there is a higher chance they decide to buy again (unless you provided them with not a very nice experience). Your solution has already convinced them and they already have gained some knowledge about it so now it is easier to recognize their needs and make them purchase again.

2. Lowering costs

If you take care of the existing customers instead of investing in getting new ones you can save for a rainy day. According to studies getting new customers costs 6-7 more than retaining the ones you have. Also, you can save up on marketing activities as you don’t need as many of them for the existing customers to attract new ones.

3. Improving one’s offer

Who can be a better tester than a person that actually needed your solution and tried it out? Your customer can be a source of feedback about your offer which you can use to improve it. You can ask them if it meets their expectations, what are the benefits and what are the drawbacks or whether the price is good. With that information, you can simply make your offer impeccable.

As you can see, targeting the existing customers makes you save money and improve both the attractiveness of your business website and offer. However, in order to retain the customers nearby, you may take various paths. What these paths are when it comes to customer retention?

Effective customer retention strategies

Observe and react to prevent

Usually, it’s not like a customer leaves all of a sudden and you couldn’t see any signs of it. You have to observe very meticulously your relationship with customers in order to detect any signs of losing interest or trust in your solution or company.

Observe means pay close attention to the customers’ behavior to be able to react when any of them seems to be a suspicious one. You should pay attention to purchase habits, customers’ history, special services added or inquiries of the customers. The best thing to do is to use a CRM system for that as it allows you to sort all the data you have.

Prepare special offers for your customers

I think every one of us likes to be a little pampered. We all like special discounts, free extras or offers tailored to our needs and whims. In some way, we feel more spoiled and taken care of. And so do your existing customers.

If you know what they like when they buy and what they behave like you are capable of preparing something special for them that will get their interest and make them purchase it at once. Identify their needs and provide them with something special that will meet them. They will buy again and stay with you for sure.

Provide your customers with outstanding customer service

As mentioned before the customers like to be taken care of. And it doesn’t have to be done only by special offers. You should also provide them with excellent customer service. Nowadays the competition is so intense that if you don’t give your customers, the best care they will go to somebody who will.

To provide the customers with the outstanding customer care you have to be responsive, timely, reliable, honest and not using buck-passing. If you hire people as customer service specialists make sure they are dedicated, polite and will do their best to make the customers satisfied. The customer service of high quality is extremely important today and cannot be ignored.

Give a bonus to your most valuable customers

Most valuable are obviously the ones that give you the most profit. Basing on the customer data gathered you can easily detect which clients are the most devoted and form the biggest chunk of your profits. Notice that these are the ones you really wouldn’t like to lose as they provide your business with the most value.

If you know who are your most valuable customers, you may give away some incentives for them as a little bonus for loyalty and devotion. They would feel appreciated and are more prone to stay with you. Moreover, you can openly state that for regular customers you prepare extra offers and it can make the regular customers buy more to become the most valuable ones to get something extra

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