Running a small business is undoubtedly challenging – at best. Is it worthwhile? Absolutely! But staying competitive and relevant in today’s ever-changing market can be extremely difficult. One issue that all businesses struggle with at some point is customer retention.
The idea that you can just replace unhappy or bored customers with new ones isn’t true – the cost alone is astronomical. Your business can benefit substantially when you actively employ tactics to keep current customers loyal to your company instead of competitors. Here’s why retention supersedes acquisition and effective strategies to maintain the relationship between your business and its customers.
Why Is Customer Retention So Important?
According to the Harvard Business Review, the cost of acquiring a new customer to replace one that leaves your company for a competitor is as much as 5 to 25 times more than the cost of keeping that customer with your business. While it’s critical to continue to invest your resources into customer acquisition on an ongoing basis, it’s arguably even more critical to invest time and money into customer retention.
Frederick Reichheld of Bain & Company recently published data that suggests the value of retaining just 5% more customers can translate to at least 25% more profits, and in some cases, revenue increased by up to 95%. The research makes it clear – putting effort into retaining more customers can have significant benefits for your business.
10 Customer Retention Strategies For Small Business Success
1. Strive to Provide a Great Customer Experience
With so many different companies today providing similar – or in some cases, even the exact same – products and services, what you’re selling matters less than the experience customers have while you’re selling it to them.
Think about what your customers go through when they make a purchase from you. How do they feel when browsing your website? Is it easy for them to find information? What about when they visit your establishment? Are customers usually coming away from their interactions with your business feeling satisfied?
Look for ways to improve the customer experience from beginning to end, whether online or in-store. This is an ongoing effort that often changes seasonally and can be impacted by world events, so it’s important to re-evaluate on a regular basis.
2. Deliver On Every Promise Your Company Makes
Today’s consumers are sharp and are on the lookout for suspicious offers and scam opportunities. Differentiate your company from poor-quality competitors by making sure you deliver on every promise your business makes. Make sure your team follows through when they tell a customer they will return their call or say they will send something important at a certain time and date.
You can also check feedback forums and review websites frequently to look for instances where a customer might have felt like your business didn’t deliver on a promise and put in the effort to rectify it.
3. Reward Customer Loyalty
Customers love feeling like they’re part of a “family” at the places they choose to shop at or order services from. When you create a sense of camaraderie and belonging, customers continue to come back to you for goods or services instead of trying out one of your competitors.
One way to cultivate this perception is by rewarding customer loyalty. You can give a free gift or discount, send exclusive coupons to customers who have signed up for your email list, or both. Consumers tend to frequent establishments and businesses that offer robust loyalty rewards, even to the point of looking for reasons to shop with your company so they can earn more incentives.
4. Optimize Your Website For the Buyer’s Journey
The large majority of consumers today look at a company’s website or online reviews before deciding to allow someone into their house or visit their establishment in person. Your website offers a unique opportunity to nurture the customer along the buyer’s journey, providing the right resources at the right stages for maximum appeal.
Test different variations of your page elements as users explore your site and then use this data to tailor your website to promote the kind of user engagement you want.
5. Customize Your Brand Messaging
Customizing the messaging delivered to users during the shopping experience can be a great way to make consumers feel seen, catered to, and valued. Consider how brick-and-mortar establishments tailor in-person shopping to their target audience, using their branding and messaging to touch on pain points or advertise the benefits of products or services. This is something you can recreate online using a variety of different strategies.
Start by collecting data about how users navigate your website, like customer surveys, behavior analytics, and online reviews. Then, use this information to develop messaging designed to appeal to the majority of your target market. For example, if you sell luxury bath products and you notice that a lot of customers are browsing your higher-priced gift baskets but not completing a purchase, you could put up a lead magnet offering a discount on that specific product.
6. Give Customers Multiple Ways to Contact You
Ideally, both current and potential customers should have multiple different ways to contact your company, file a complaint, or get customer support. Keep in mind that your availability to customers is a significant factor in the decision to make a second purchase from you.
While new customers may flock to you for various reasons, fewer of them will stay and become a loyal customer if you don’t have an easy way for customers to reach you for questions or concerns.
Make sure your website has a simple contact form that has as few fields as possible. List your telephone number prominently on your website and social media profiles, and consider having a dedicated customer support email address. You can also provide links to your social pages where customers can tag you for a response.
7. Ask Customers to Give You Feedback
Soliciting feedback is another important strategy for keeping customers happy and doing business with your company. You can ask customers to leave a review online, send you a message on social media, or make suggestions for areas of improvement using a form on your website.
Just make sure you’re following up and addressing the reviews or taking some of the suggestions provided and incorporating them into the way you operate your company. Customers want to see that their effort to provide you with feedback is worthwhile and that your managers and team members are hearing what they have to say.
8. Be Transparent With Customers About Problems or Warnings
Few consumers today actually expect perfection, and they tend to be more forgiving of businesses that make mistakes when the company at fault is transparent and straightforward. Resist the temptation to bury problems – instead, face them head-on, addressing any issues proactively in press statements or on social media.
Don’t be afraid to admit publicly that you were in the wrong, but be sure to follow up with what you’ll be doing differently going forward, like improving the visibility of product warnings or providing team members with additional training.
9. Simplify Tasks With Software When Possible
Customer relationship management is more dynamic than ever before with contact between businesses and customers spanning across multiple different touchpoints. Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software can help you tailor the experience consumers have when they interact with your brand online and in person.
A good CRM goes beyond providing the technology businesses need to communicate with their customers across multiple platforms. It also helps companies better understand their customers’ behaviors, pain points, and goals in a way that enriches the consumer experience and feeds valuable data back to the business.
10. Track Data, Analyze Trends, and Make Changes
The most important strategy to keep the valuable customers you earn is to track, analyze, and use search data to make intuitive changes to your website marketing that reflect what your ideal consumers are looking for. If the changes you make aren’t guided by real data, you risk putting resources into something that you can’t anticipate the results of or that could be a big miss with your audience.
Use applications or put software in place that collects data about user behavior, like HotJar, Google Analytics, and UserTesting so you can learn how consumers use your site, what branding and website elements are doing well, and where your company can improve.
Schedule Your Demo of Surefire Local’s Business Intelligence Marketing Software
Search engine optimization, conversion rate optimization, and digital marketing aren’t just buzzwords – they’re things you actually need to do and become good at to achieve success as a small business owner. But finding time to learn these skills – and then execute them on a daily basis – can be challenging.
Surefire Local’s business intelligence marketing software lets small business owners like you increase traffic by as much as 34% and get up to 85% more customers, while you stay focused on cultivating meaningful relationships with their audience. Schedule your demo today to learn how your business can benefit.