By Lauren Fenthum The only thing better than gaining new customers is keeping your old ones. Retaining old customers results in a higher return of income and it costs 2-5x less. A customer retention program is a specific initiative that is designed to create customer value and encourage them to return to your business and to continue to invest with you. The programs can be company led or customer-led. Customer retention strategies help create loyalty and positive sentiment. Companies can derive more value from a product based on customer retention and this encourages feedback and stories of use. This builds a community of like-minded consumers that all LOVE your brand.
Below are a few strategies that are worth investing in:Inspire With A Mission: In some cases, brands inspire loyalty through what they stand from. Consumers are always focused on altruistic and environmental effects when it comes to buying habits. Doing good is becoming more and more important to us, and investing in brands that have the same belief system as you do is great. Find something that people care about and position your brand around that.
Empower With Convenience: Nearly everyone is on mobile, make your brand easy to access and engageable by creating an app that allows customers to have you at their fingertips without them having to go out their way to support your business.
Personalization: It is so vital that businesses come across as being authentic, in order to become as relatable as possible to their consumers. Give your brand a personality and include this in your marketing tactics and communication with people. To do this you need to identify your audiences personas and characteristics and communicate with them on their preferred channels. Encourage your customers to speak directly to you. In order to make the experience with your business a more personal one, leave the generic responses alone and give your make your customers an individual, nobody wants to talk to a robot.
Use Experiences To Elicit Positive Feelings: Look at the brand Coca-Cola, all their marketing campaigns have been centred around happiness and fun. When one thinks of the brand they automatically go back to the campaigns that express joyfulness. People relate to your brand like this and thus will always put your brand in a happy situation. E.g. every party or social gathering will have a Coca-Cola product because of what the brand stands for.
Apologize For Mistakes: As hard as we all try to avoid them, they happen. A mistake can put at risk for losing customers no matter how big or small the mishap was, however, this depends on how your business handles it. Research shows that 96% of consumers are still likely to continue to go back to your brand after the company has apologized and rectified the situation. Always apologise honestly in order to retain your loyal customers.
