Best Ways to Improve Customer Retention and Grow your Business

Rinika
Written by Rinika on
Best Ways to Improve Customer Retention and Grow your Business

Evaluation of the growth of your business may not always relate to a happy factor. In fact, “Churn” is one of our least favourite word that is also the most common word used as a metric to evaluate growth. It is an inevitable part of a businessman’s life.

What is Customer Churn?

The word in layman's term relates to losing a customer. Customer churn is the percentage of customers that discontinued using your company’s products or service in a certain period. A churn rate as close as 0% should be the top priority of your company.

For example: If you had 100 customers at the beginning of the year and after the first quarter you see only 90 of them left, then your churn rate is 10 %. Initially, you may feel it is a pretty low value but think the amount of effort you would have taken to acquire these 10 customers.

Why is Customer Retention a top priority?


“Retention problems sneak up on you. You need to be actively monitoring retention cohorts even when retention is going up and to the right.”

former Director of Growth and Analytics, Hubspot ~ Dan Wolchonok

It is always advisable to focus on customer retention than acquisition as attracting new customers may be rewarding, but it involves a lot of hard work and expense. Plus you will not have to put efforts to convince the already existing customers to use your services or buy your products. And according to Forrester, it costs 5 TIMES MORE to acquire new customers than to retain an existing one. I will explain to you how that happens.

  • Traditional Marketing such as advertisement, direct mail, & cold calling
  • Inbound marketing like blog content, SEO,& social media
  • Event marketing

Customer retention can lead to an increase in profits as existing customers are 50% more likely to try new products and services. The customers will believe in you and eagerly listen to new products. A trust factor is important as word of mouth is the best way to market products.

How to reduce Churn?

  • Analyze why customer churn is occurring in your organization. All this while we have been talking about customer churn. It is essential to understand the reason why customers decided to leave. Now the simplest way is to talk to your customers directly. I may sound crazy, but to understand anybody’s mindset you should talk to them personally.

Now for a small number of customers, you may just call them up to find out why they want to leave. But what if you have thousands of them, then calling becomes impossible. That’s when reviews and customer surveys play an important role. One of the effective customer survey platforms is NPS/CSAT platform. Happyagility is providing customer survey platforms and AI-based solutions to reduce customer churn and boost business growth.

  • Interact with your customers
    Give your customers a reason to come back to you every time they need something. Yeah, that is also called relationship marketing. Try to continuously engage with your customers with your products and services. Customers should be provided with contents featuring the key functional benefits and uniqueness of your products and services. Regular newsletters, special offers, upgrades and upcoming products should be continuously updated. Social media networks such as Instagram and Facebook are must-have customer engagement platforms for businesses. Using social media will help you both attract new customers and reach repeat customers, especially on their mobile devices.
  • Build effective loyalty programs

    A customer who returns to you every time for business is considered a loyal customer. The reasons may be many but the most common ones are the remarkable experiences they have with you. Show your customers how much you value them by offering perks that are so good, it would be foolish not to become a member. Always remember – “Don’t take your customers for granted”.Your competitors will offer mouth-watering perks too.


  • “Personalization” will help you to grow more than 25% to 77% to retain your existing customers. Some examples like personalized dashboards, deals and discounts, rewards, emails and offers. Also express “Gratitude” by sending direct notes such as thank you notes on product deliveries, purchase confirmation emails and special notes on occasions.
  • 4.Track customer experience & Pay attention to complaints

    A standard approach for collecting data on customer satisfaction is through surveys. It consists of asking your customers how satisfied they are, with or without follow up questions. Net Promoter Score or NPS analyze customer experiences and predicts your business growth. With NPS you will be able to measure customer experience management programs across the globe. Similarly, the Customer Satisfaction Score (CSAT) is the most straightforward of the customer satisfaction survey methodologies that measure customer satisfaction with a business, purchase, or interaction.

    A feedback bar inside your website, with generally not more than one or two questions will allow your customer to share their opinions while engaging with your business. Use Google forms in email surveys to allow your customer to take their time in answering multiple questions. Social media has a tremendous impact on the relationship between business and customer. People share their experiences and views with their family and close ones.

    Complaints are like the needlepoint that when breaks cannot be reused. Focus on your complaints to look into the bigger part of the problem. 1 negative comment can change the shape of your business. It says that negative reviews spread like forest fires. Hence, focus on complaints and try to resolve them as much as possible.

  • Know your risks Prevention is better than cure right? Similarly, the best way to avoid churn is to prevent them from occurring in the first place. There will always be a group of people who likes to explore more. It is in your interest to hold them together with you. Some of them are also more prone to leave with just one bad experience. You should be in a position to identify the group who balances on the edge. 35% of organizations have used the tactic to successfully reduce customer churn.

Most of these methods are effective in analyzing the reasons for churn. The reasons will also make you aware of certain actions, or maybe the lack of actions from your end. At the end of the day, your goal is to grow and build trust. You should be able to foresee your customers as well as your competitors.

Credit - https://www.crazyegg.com/blog/customer-retention/ https://visualcue.com/understanding-customers-leave/ https://www.digipay.guru/blog/customer-loyalty-programs-on-your-mobile-wallets/

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