How to Retain
Existing Customers -
All About Sales

Table of Content

2. What is Customer Retention?

Introduction

An average business gains 80 percent of their future profits from just 20 percent of their existing customers.

“Yes, the success rate of selling to an existing customer is about 60-70 percent, while selling to a new customer is a mere 5-20 percent.”

Yet, marketers get so caught-up in trying to acquire new customers that they neglect to compete for a consumer’s loyalty and fail to reach acceptable customer satisfaction levels. This is a serious blunder!

Most businesses around the world think that customer retention will follow unpretentiously if they simply offer-up an excellent product or service, and this is one of the most common pitfalls.

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What is Customer Retention?

Customer Retention is an approach to reduce customer abandonment and to gain customer loyalty through various business initiatives. Caring about your existing customers should be the most anticipated source of revenue for all businesses as repeat purchases lead to repeat profits.

“Customer Retention improves your long-term revenue as repeat business is more likelier to happen when compared to new business.”

In this article, we have listed out 5 customer retention techniques that will help you keep existing clients on your side.

1.Attempt to promote trust:

The successful outcome of a business correlates to the trust between a seller and buyer. Building trust would imply that you understand your customer’s issues and challenges. Don’t focus just on product positioning.

If there is no trust between you and your prospective customer, your business will meet its inevitable death. It is imperative for a sales professional to establish an environment of cooperation, transparency and mutual respect. This will help you earn the right to a customer’s time and recognition.

One of the easiest and quickest ways to increase your revenue is by reactivating and re-engaging customers who already know about your product. This will have a major impact on your business’ performance as a whole and its respective customer retention rates.

Acquiring new leads is great, but it is 16 times more expensive to do so than it is to retain an existing client.

The three linchpins to building trust are:

When customers trust your brand, about 83% will recommend your services to others, and 82% will stay loyal to your brand.

In simple terms, a loyal customer base is all you need to build a thriving business. These days customers possess a heightened sensitivity to risk, which is understandable as nothing is more scarring than a lousy customer experience. Be sincere about what you can and can’t deliver as reputation takes a lifetime to build and only seconds to break.

2. Offer effective customer service

According to a survey conducted by Forest Research, approximately 45% of US consumers abandon online transactions, if their issues are not addressed. We understand that most marketers tend to forget about active customer service as dealing with your everyday tasks can tend to keep you busy. However, it is crucial for you to remember one the primary reasons you are in this business in the first place – tasks and obstacles are part and parcel of it. Reducing your response time to customer complaints and queries is a great initiative to capture higher customer engagement levels. Incorporate a specified Turnaround Time (TAT) in your customer service team’s performance evaluation table to encourage the effective handling of customer queries. Poor service will drive your customers into the arms of your competitors, whereas by offering a remarkable customer service experience, you stand to build a fortune with the help of your existing customers. To avoid the increase in response time, keep fine-tuned response templates handy to solve a customer’s query. Knowing your customer enables your team to respond quickly, and feedback helps with the immediate inclusion of necessary changes that any customer would expect.

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3. Competitive advantage - Need of the hour!

It is essential for you to identify the pain points of your customers, doing so will help you eliminate competition from your toughest business rivals.By offering your customers a USP that your competitors don’t, you stand to build your own niche in the market.

Gain deeper insights through customer surveys to determine exactly what it is that your customers want. Incorporate a perfect pricing strategy and stay innovative to keep your competition at bay.

Don’t forget, exceptional customer service experiences will only increase the number of loyal customers. Be smart and nullify the effect of your competitors and enhance your customer retention strategies.

For example, Urban Outfitters, a multinational retail corporation headquartered in Philadelphia, hired artists to handle their stores. This non-traditional move helped them acquire around 3$ billion revenue over the last few years.

Another means by which you can improve upon existing practices is to implement the use of virtual reality applications to enhance your existing business processes. Define your brand and stay ahead in terms of quality, price, customer experience and service.

4. Frequent communications with your customers

The Economist shared an article recently about the success story of IBM. The report suggested that IBM’s success was primarily due to strong relationships it shares with its customers and the fact that they regularly communicate with them.

“Customers are a source of new ideas as their feedback could reveal common opinions. Use that feedback to improve your business. ”

Add a personal touch to your business campaigns and customer retention programs. Use a sequence of letters, phone calls, special offers and coupons to engage them.

Regular communication with your customers will enable you to offer higher quality products and services, tailored specifically to their needs.

“Maintaining a solid relationship with your existing customers plays a significant role in establishing a sense of loyalty. ”

5. Reward programs

Loyalty programs may be the oldest and most persuasive marketing tool in a business’ arsenal. Most businesses engage and improve customer retention rates by constructing an emotional connect to their brand.

The initiation of a loyalty program is one of the best ways to reward your customers and this strategically increases the chances of repeat purchases. Rewarding your customers will help you to build regular engagement opportunities. Rewarding your customers helps you build regular engagement opportunities and it increases the lifecycle of your customers.

About 69 percent of consumers agree that their choice of retailer is determined by where they gain the most amount of customer reward or loyalty program points.

“76% of consumers reckon that loyalty programs are crucial to building a healthy relationship with a brand. ”

Reward programs are an excellent way to engage customers and spread the word about your brand. Create a feeling of connectivity by launching effective reward programs for activities like referring or tagging your brand via social media platforms.

To conclude

A content curator who focuses on start-ups B2B marketing platforms.
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