Customer retention:
- Establish e valuation of customer defections.
You need to keep statistics to be sure that you have customer defections and to be able to evaluate the scale of this problem. You may assign one of your specialists to do this job. Ideally you may create particular department .
- Range customer defections and define how you will register them.
Defections examples: customer missed an appointment , not re-purchased your product , not returning for additional services and products etc. Let your manager to contact such clients to clarify their backgrounds.
- On basis of obtained information start making your plan.
Which kind of defections is the most “popular” in your case? Remember that your policy should be focused on area which hides the most of unrealized profits.
- Define your target (most profitable) clients to focus activities on them.
When trying to increase your customer retention rate, remember that you do not need to obtain long term loyalty of each client, but you need to retain clients with the biggest potential for consistent and lavish spending .
- Establish metrics to calculate how much you spend per customer.
Remember that customer retention is the same as making investments. You shouldn’t just increase costs, but rather to direct resources to customers that potentially can bring highest returns.
- Make sure that you are ready to enable all possible communication channels for retention.
Ideally, you need to support your activities with all possible means, like reminder calls, sending appointment cards and announcements, publishing insider newsletter, sending e-mail reminders and/or mail thank-you notes, etc.
- Establish membership cards and membership programs .
This is one of the basic points in any programs, because all of us are fond of feeling special, and to be recognized as members of a club.
- Take care of welcome and thank you communications.
- Ensure s satisfaction surveys, followed up by phone calls , letters or emails.
- Make sure you have qualified customer service, empowered to solve problems .
The critical part of process is how customers are treated by your customer service . Treat customers like they are the most important person s on the earth , don’t let them have any bad experience ! Provide training to your personnel.
- Organize good technical support and advice.
Everything said in previous point is also fair for this one. Make sure that all technical aspects of your business are properly organized; support clients with follow up satisfaction calls. Remember that your goal is not only to sell your products, but to ensure their proper use – in spite of successful sales and good product qualities, yet a lot of customer defections happen due to misunderstandings in technical questions.
- Design frequent buyer programs which stimulate your customers to get back to you again and again.
If it is possible, design system of increasing discounts for those who buy regularly. This is one of the most effective methods. For example volume discounts – the more client buys, the more he saves.
- Ensure event driven communications that are connected to the customers’ lives .
Organize regular birthday and holiday greetings, presents and souvenirs for loyal clients.
- Establish database for keeping track on customers’ history.
Accurately track every customer’s purchases, preferences, complements and complaints, which are used to carry out daily building of individual model . Today, you can use special computer-based solutions for this purpose.
- Establish deep integration and coordination between marketing programs , advertising, direct communications, customer service, and sales programs .
Customer retention importance should be communicated to everyone in your company, so all of the staff members can be engaged into undertaking strategies .
- Take care of segmentation of the customer base by lifetime value groups ...
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