How To Increase Your Business Profit With Effective Customer Retention Strategy
By: Pavi Vasa
Tags: Customer Experience, Customer, Customer Engagement, Customer Success, Customer Service

Customer retention is the key aspect of a successful business. According to research, increasing retention rates by only 5% increases a company’s profits by 25–95%. Cost of acquiring new clients is always higher than retaining an existing client.

Small business usually considers spending less when they first interact with new brands. Later on, they spend more with companies they’ve already done business with. Also, they will refer to others. It also found that most businesses need to retain clients for at least 12 to 18 months to break even on their investment.

Why You Should Focus On Retention Rate

Affordability: It is more expensive to acquire a new client than to retain the old one.

ROI: An increase in retention rate can increase your company’s profit by 25–95%

Loyalty: Retained clients buy more often and refer their friends and family as they know the value of your service or products.

So a business needs to focus on retention strategy.

Keep Your Customer Happy

You should understand that everyone is busy in this busy world. You should value your customer time and value them. Always make sure your client feel important, listen to them carefully and understand their needs.

Make sure to keep your promises to your customers and thank them whenever possible.

91% of unhappy customers will never buy from you again. So it is your responsibility to keep them happy to increase your retention rate.

Conduct An Effective Exit Interview

An exit interview is one of the powerful ways to understand why your customer leaves to improve and prevent your future consumer from leaving your service.

It is a known fact that 90% of consumers use online reviews before visiting a business and 88% of consumers trust online reviews as much as a personal recommendation.

There is an endless reason why your client leaves you. Some of them are

1. They found your competitors that better matches their needs

2. Their business has a financial problem

3. Your service charge is too expensive.

4. Lack of customer service.

Here are some of the sample question to ask in a client exit interview :

1. Why did you initially signup our product or service?

2. What did you like about our service or products?

3. Did we meet your expectation?

4. What could we have done differently?

5. What would it take for you to reconsider our services?

Take your first step to improve your services or product by collecting client feedback. By taking the necessary steps to improvise your services you can increase your retention rate.

Stay In Touch With Your Customer

It is important to stay in touch with them to build a strong and long-lasting relationship. Get involved in their blog and social media post.

Plan to do a regular newsletter to your existing client to stay connected.

Surprise Your Customer

Scientists say that surprise is good for the brain. Surprise your existing client on their birthday and special occasion that build a strong relationship.

Know Your Customer Expectation

The first step in exceeding your client’s expectations to know those expectations.

Yes, you should understand their expectation to deliver it. To understand their expectations you should communicate regularly. Regular communication increase trust which increases retention rate.

Train Them With Educational Emails

Email marketing is a great tool that converts prospect. It is important to educate your prospect and tell them about a unique selling point.

Nurture your existing client with a loyalty program. Use personal experience to feel that they are part of your business.

Address Customer’s Complaints On Time

In this busy world, business is busy to chase new leads, but it is equally important to listen to their complaint and solve it fast.

Client’s reviews, testimonials and star rating are important factors that you should integrate into retention rate.

Why client reviews, testimonials and star ratings are essential for every brand :

1. Reviews make you more visible

2. Social proof drive more business

3. They influence your client’s decision making and many more.

Make sure to make your consumer realize that you care for them and show them that you will better your services. Your client doesn’t care how much you know until they know how much you care. Yes, none of this retention strategy will give you an overnight result. But you should be patient and consistent to get the result.