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14 Amazing Customer Retention Strategies That Work

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Growing and sustaining a business is no easy feat, and one of the most vital parts of any business is the management of customer retention. To be lax with your customer retention strategy is to toss business away into the hands of your competitors, and if not treated with urgency, other problems may arise.

But before we dig in, what exactly is customer retention?

Customer retention is the operation of managing and keeping existing customers engaged with your brand or business so that they may return to make use of your brand or business again.

Now, with that in mind, let’s see how we can get your customer retention program on track with your business objectives.

Table of Contents:

- Share Your Mission And Brand Story
- Communicate Changes And News
- Collect Customer Feedback
- Follow Up And Check In
- Suggest Related Products
- Use A Communications Calendar
- A Monthly Newsletter
- Make Your Rewards Program Shine
- Take To Social Media
- Fast And Easy
- Rely On Subscriptions
- Leverage Personalization
- Be Proactive

14 Amazing Customer Retention Strategies That Work

Share Your Mission And Brand Story

Be the brand that makes its customers fall in love with them all over again, but also use this as an angle to attract new customers. Humans rely on a sense of relatability and in order to ensure that, they’ll need to connect with your brand, vision, and mission. Share your brand story with a tone that clearly communicates your values and indirectly forms a pathway for customers to know and love you. This will help a great deal with customer acquisition.

Communicate Changes And News

Nobody wants to learn about changes that your business underwent long after it took place and to have customers trust you, you’ll have to draw them closer with information that discusses operations and changes within your organization, while also sharing your company culture.

Keep your customers in the loop and always communicate any news that needs to be shared in newsletters or blogs.

Collect Customer Feedback

Using client feedback (positive or negative) will help you craft an experience that your customers can enjoy and relate to. And if you need to know what customers think of your business or products, then ask them.

Using customer surveys will help you collect valuable feedback to diagnose any potential dissatisfaction. It’s a pivotal point of action for you to comprehend what the issues at hand are and how you can improve client retention. Customers want to feel like their opinion matters, so show them that you care and ask what their thoughts are.

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Follow Up And Check In

Post-purchase communication is vital. Once a customer has made use of your services or bought your product, you still need to do the work in order to keep them happy. To ensure that your customers land in your post-sales funnel, you should implement a follow-up to learn about customer experiences.

Thank your customers for their support and offer any additional assistance they may require to get the most out of your products or services. This will help turn your customers into loyal customers.

Suggest Related Products

Buying from your business creates an opportunity for you to learn about the needs of your customer. Putting that information to good use is a great customer retention strategy that will work in your favor.

Utilize the insights on hand to create suggestions for other products that your customer may find appealing. These insights are based on previous purchases and cart activity.

Use A Communications Calendar

Managing your customer engagement is a golden opportunity to upsell and boost loyalty to your brand. While customers may not always take the initiative to reach out, your team should take action with communication.

Keeping the channels of communications open will allow your customers to have the opportunity to reach out, but most importantly, it should serve as a platform to re-establish your relationship with them.

A communications calendar is a seamless method to keep track of these communications in chart form. It captures the data of when customers reach out and create alerts to notify you of those who may not have interacted with your brand in a while.

A Monthly Newsletter

Crafting a newsletter is not only simple but also cost-effective. To take a solid course of action in your customer retention strategy, you can use an email automation platform to send updates and offers to all of your customers at once.

Implement the RSS feed on a designated frequency to avoid those manual updates of content. Newsletters may not always be read, but it’s a simple way to create a reminder of your brand to help increase your customer retention rate.

Make Your Rewards Program Shine

Thanking your customers post-purchase is good enough, but one of the most common customer retention examples includes rewarding those who do business with you. A reward program is an excellent method of encouraging customers to return when they are given reason to do so. This may include discounts, exclusive access, or personalized offers.

Take To Social Media

A single bar review or one unfortunate customer service experience can drive away people in numbers. This means that you always have to be one step ahead. If your brand or business can prioritize customer service, and provide those channels for customers to reach you, your retention rates will not suffer as much.

One way of doing this is to have social media and to utilize it effectively. It’s not only there to share your brand story, but also to offer quick help and assistance for customers who need to reach you immediately.

Fast And Easy

Delivery and returns are two factors of great concern in e-commerce. Communicating that last-mile delivery and sharing updates about shipments can help you retain customers and keep them happy.

The same goes for products that customers wish to return or replace. Have a policy set in place, but allow for a simplified process that will help your customers understand what they may or may not expect. Most importantly, you can provide peace of mind which will help your clients.

Rely On Subscriptions

The subscription model has for long been a customer retention strategy that works like magic. You will have a chunk of online shoppers who’ll sign up for your service or subscriptions to receive products on a recurring basis.

Offering a convenient, special, and exclusive product or service that they’ll constantly use and replenish is the best way to go and keeps your customers returning for more.

Leverage Personalization

Larger brands may have some difficulty in creating a persona that allows them to be as authentic and human as possible. Online shopping and self-scanners are convenient, but people still like to know that they are understood or listened to.

Using a specific channel, like Twitter, for instance, will serve as a method and platform for you to execute this human touch with your brand voice. Show that you care and show it by interacting with customers who mention you in their tweets.

If you have a firm understanding of your buyer’s or audience personas, then you’ll be able to communicate with them on their preferred channels in a manner that they’ll be able to relate to.

Encouraging direct communication on social media shows that you care and must become a part of your brand messaging. Remind your customers that you are accessible and that you are there to help, but do it in such a way that whatever you’re communicating sounds like it comes from a person and not some automated response.

Be Proactive

Persistence eventually pays off and you’ll reap the benefits thereof. This means that you tail those customers who left your website before making a purchase or subscribing. It’s imperative to remember that some abandoned merchandise can be recovered.

The trusty abandoned cart email works wonders, but keep in mind that your goal should be to retain the customer and not to push for a sale.

Summary

These are but a few of the customer retention strategies out there, but what we talked about today are the ones that cannot work as shortcuts or quick fixes. These are strategies that need to be implemented with care. After all, doesn’t it take time to get to know someone on a personal level? Business relationships are no different.

Bear in mind that you’ll need to be constantly aware of what you need to do to improve, and sometimes that may not even be your customer’s concern...it might even be your product or service that needs tweaking. Making sure that you respond to that by addressing all issues means that you’ll be keeping customers loyal.