Retain your customers at a higher rate!

 Business is tough in many parts of the world today.  A lot of people who are in business have to rely on old customers and referrals to get by. The new customers are difficult to come by. So while you seek the new ones learn to leverage the ones you have already so that you do not lose them.  Retention strategies are important for you to be able to do this.
What is retention?

•        Customer retention is the act of implementing certain strategies which allows current customers to keep using the brand and potential customers to turn into regular consumers. In order to sustain in the tough market competitions, businesses have to follow customer retention strategies right from the time they get a new customer till throughout the period the person uses the product.Customer retention is not just a matter of offering quality products, but also how the company gives proper services and creates a dependable goodwill in the market. 

         You and I have to foster good will and consistently court the customers' attention if we want to retain them. We must not give room for them to think of the competition as being better in any sense, so we have to frequently benchmark the competition in our sector and find out where we are going wrong and indeed what we are doing right. 

        Retained customers are known to generate much more revenue than occasional or new customers. They feel more comfortable with our services and procedures and do not usually hesitate before paying. Sometimes it possible for us to predict when our retained customers would buy and how much they would commit to new purchases over a period. This helps us to forecast our income and plan our finances.  

 

 

Practical strategies for retaining your customers:

•Membership cards and programs that entitle your customers to special offers, discounts, or preferential treatment.

•Welcome, acknowledgement, sales recognition, thank you statements.

•After sales satisfaction and complaint inquiries and surveys.

•Event oriented communications in which the customer is genuinely interested.

•Enhanced and empowered customer, after sales, and technical support. 

          Companies must begin to institute  conscious attempts to retain their customers before someone else gets in the door and tries to take them over. The whole idea is to have a retention strategy and immediately a sale has been made swing into action with inquiries about the good or service from the customer with a view to trying to ascertain that the need for which the purchase was made is met and service as well as advice is offered free of charge as part of the customer care portfolio. 

Measures you can take to retain your customers:

The current economic climate is causing customers to be more selective. As a result, many companies are losing customers at a rapid rate.  

1. Find out what customers want and what causes them to stay or leave.

First, conduct a survey with existing customers. Ask customers what they want and need, as well as which specific aspects of your business, products, services they value most. In addition, conduct a separate survey with former customers to find out what specifically caused them to leave.

2. Proactively collect and promote customer feedback.

Do not wait until there is a problem to contact or follow up with customers. Instead, set up communication channels to encourage sincere two-way communication with them, and then use those channels to actively solicit and collect their feedback.

Examples of customer communication channels include: a feedback link or feedback form on your company web site, focus groups, comment cards, in-person visits, e-mails, letters, user forums, surveys, etc.

3. Use technology to manage and analyze customer feedback, and ensure the right people hear it.

        Companies can easily have as many as 35 or more tools in place to listen to the customer. These tools frequently duplicate efforts and consume a tremendous amount of time and resources. By the time feedback is tabulated, analyzed and shared, the input is weeks or months old. 

4. Analyze customer feedback to gain valuable insights.

Once you’ve gathered feedback from customers, analyze it to find out:

 The type of customer feedback and the percentage in each category (complaints, suggestions, comments, concerns)

The channel most used by customers to provide feedback (Web, phone, in-person, etc.) 

5. Immediately address customers’ complaints and concerns. 

         If you can address customers complaints and concerns immediately or almost as soon as they are brought to you, you will retain customers because of your promptness. No one likes to be kept waiting least of all the customer who wants proper and tailored treatment from your organization no matter how big or small you are. 

•6. Take action and Measure the Results. 

         Lining up what you will do to retain your customers, a phone call or visit even when you are not selling anything, needs to be followed through. Once you have started doing it then you can measure the effect 

•7. Actively measure and monitor your customers’ loyalty and engagement. 

         Using data based on frequent customers and their purchase behavior you can measure loyalty and determine if your engagement strategies have worked. 

•8. Create and nurture a company culture that embraces and is committed to using customer feedback. 

        Once you have started these strategies and approaches in your company you must makes sure it is sustained on an organizational or at least a departmental level. It should be part of the DNA of the organization. 

•9. Keep asking, listening, analyzing and improving.

       The customer is always right when it comes to quality of goods and services, so listen to him.