Estimated reading time: 3 mins
Trying to convince a customer to buy your product is hard work and takes a lot of effort, but convincing that customer to do business with you again can be even more difficult. The act of convincing a consumer to stay with your company and continue to do business is known as customer retention. Customer retention is one of the most important aspects in today’s business world. A company wants to create long lasting and profitable relationships with customers. Some of the biggest companies in the world got where they are today due to their ability to retain their loyal customers. Even though selling to businesses can be a little different than selling directly to consumers in some areas, a lot of the the same customer retention strategies are similar. So how does a business go about improving their customer retention rate and creating brand loyalty?
Follow Up
One of the most important aspects of securing a long term customers is following up with them. It is important that your customer doesn’t forget about you and knows that their business is appreciated. In addition, try to personalize your follow-up message. For example, if a business purchased equipment for wellness activities from you, then try including a coupon for similar products that the customer is likely to find useful. If your follow up message is unique and offers some sort of value to the customer, then they are likely to do business with you again.
Reward Loyal Customers
Your extremely loyal customers are your most important assets, and you should try to maintain them at all costs. In fact, the Pareto Principle states that the most loyal 20% of your customers generate 80% of your income. That makes it extremely vital that you keep these top customers happy and returning to your business. There are multiple ways that you could go about doing this. One way is to introduce a rewards system. Every time a customer shops at your business they could earn “reward points”, and if they accumulate enough of them they can redeem them for special prizes or products. You could also utilize a subscription service. This allows loyal customers to pay a monthly fee, and in return every month they receive some sort of combination of products or samples. Regardless of how you choose to go about it, you should make sure that your customers are rewarded aptly for staying loyal to your business.
Introduce Special Offers And Deals
One of the best ways to retain customers is to constantly entice them with new deals and special offers. If you’re constantly offering a variety of special offers, then customers will be constantly revisiting your business to see what kind’ve great special deal you have to offer this week. Another thing you can try is annual special offers. You can offer the same special deal once every year or only at certain times of the year. McDonald’s employs this with their “Shamrock Shakes”. They know that during the weeks leading up to St. Patrick’s Day, customers will flock to their store because that is the only time period that they can get this special offer. McDonalds leverages this special offer in order to retain customers and keep them coming through the door year after year. Although it may be difficult to recreate a craze like this with business to business deals, it is still important to offer special deals to keep your clients coming back.
Implement Feedback Systems
Customers want to feel like they are part of your business and want their voices to be heard. People love when they feel they add value and contribute to a situation. That’s why you should add feedback systems to your business. These feedback systems can range from creating surveys to implementing product reviews on your website. Not only do these feedback systems make your customers feel important, but they also provide you with valuable information. You can take your customer’s feedback and implement it into your future strategies, allowing you to alter plans and products so that you can retain as many customers as possible in the future.
