A customer retention strategy is essential for every business regardless of industry. In a nutshell, the purpose of a retention strategy is to encourage clients to remain loyal to your business. Yet, coming up with the right plan to keep clients with your business isn’t necessarily easy. After all, consumers have more choice than ever before.
Businesses must work harder than ever to keep a loyal base of clients. A loyal base is important. It’s much easier and less expensive to offer services to your existing base than it is to acquire new clients. Existing clients also provide your business with a wealth of potential referrals. A customer retention strategy that is well-crafted and easy to implement helps you protect your ability to turn a profit in the future.
And can we take a minute to discuss how negative reviews affect a business? Yelp, Avvo, Google, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube are now just a finger click away for clients who are dissatisfied with your services. A negative review can be highly detrimental to your business. It’s important to be proactive to minimize the likelihood of receiving damaging feedback that everyone can see. It’s also important for you to be prepared to do damage control when necessary.
Now that you understand why a customer retention strategy is important, here’s how you can revolutionize yours.
Create Content They Want to Read
Yes, really. Not every article on your website needs to end with a call to action or explain the services that you offer. While making sure that your clients have that information is important, that’s nothing that a few well-planned internal links can’t handle.
Instead of creating an avalanche of sales-based material, become an expert in your industry. Create content that your clients want to read. Answer questions, discuss industry trends, talk about the topics that affect them. This post (and many of our other posts) are a prime example of what we mean by creating content that clients want to read. We talk about lots of topics that are under the umbrella of running a business. We also use internal linking to other posts we believe are valuable and provide links to our services.
Connect with Clients on Social Media
Social media plays an important role in a customer retention strategy. Create social media accounts where your target market tends to gather online. The most common are Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. You can also create an account for your business on Google +. You can create a YouTube channel. You can create an account on any social media channel you choose. Just make sure that you use it. Ideas include:
- Sharing your latest blog posts.
- Sharing information about your services.
- Sharing helpful tips.
- Responding to people who mention your company.
Responding to people is important. If they had a good experience and shared it, it’s important to respond and say thank you. The engagement helps reinforce positive feelings associated with your business. If it’s a bad experience, make it right. Don’t discount their feelings. Offer to look into the matter so that you can do what you can to fix the situation. Use social media to improve your customer service response time.
Use an Autoresponder for Your Email
Autoresponders should be used for good (as opposed to annoying spam messaging evil). If you have a basic information form, it should automatically respond with an email that thanks the sender for their message and tells them when they can expect a response.
You should use your out of office response if you’re unavailable during the day. Thank the sender for the message and let them know when you’ll be returning emails.
Get Feedback from Current Clients
It’s important that you understand your clients and their needs. Feedback from your current clients can show you where your business is doing well and where your business needs to improve. You can get feedback by following-up via phone or email after contact with them.
Take Responsibility When Your Company Makes a Mistake
You won’t be able to keep clients happy all of the time. If your company makes a mistake, accept responsibility for it and do better in the future. This includes misunderstandings that the client had about what your business offers.
If you happen to notice that clients are leaving and all of them have a similar complaint, it’s time to take notice and correct the problem.
Reward Loyalty
Have you ever noticed that most businesses offer new client specials? Sure, those deals are great when it comes to acquiring new clients. Are you doing anything to reward existing clients for their loyalty? Create exclusive deals for loyal customers. This could include a discount or even giving away something free from time to time. This is an essential part of the customer retention strategy that many businesses ignore.
Make More Time to Spend with Your Clients
Client intake, returning phone calls, collections, and accounts receivable can take up a lot of your time. Your time is best spent providing your services to your clients and growing your business. Clients ARM can help you make more time to spend with your clients. Our experienced and dedicated US-based remote staff provides a variety of services that can help you free up your time. To learn more about how we can help your business, schedule a free consultation with our CEO.
