Simple Customer Retention Strategies To Increase Profit
We all understand the importance of acquiring new leads and converting them into customers. A business just won’t exist without customers, right?
Customer acquisition is time-consuming, hard, and costly. But while it takes a lot of pain to acquire new customers, it’s a shame if you let those customers off the leash and lose them after their first order. You lose all the hard work and money you put in while acquiring them!
Customer retention is the process that continues after customer acquisition and conversion. It’s the use of different tactics and techniques to retain your customers so that they keep coming back.
And do you know what? Customer retention is way cheaper than customer acquisition, but a lot more worthwhile.
A retained customer is expected to spend 300% more than a new customer. This means the increased profitability of your business.
What’s more? Retained customers represent around 70% of your sales. They are a lot more valuable than your average new customer.
Your loyal customers will not only bring in more profit, but they’ll also bring in more referrals and will happily advertise your brand without costing you a dime. Who wouldn’t like that? It’s like hiring a brand ambassador for free!
It’s clear. Customer retention is important to your business, and you need to make a conscious effort trying to retain your existing customers.
Here are some simple strategies that will help you in customer retention.
Give an Amazing Experience
From the moment your customer stumbles upon your website to the point where he shells out money – the entire experience should be out of this world.
Make your visitors feel welcome and give them an amazing first impression.
Help them at every step along their journey. And continue your efforts even after they exit the sales funnel.
The kind of experience you provide will make your brand memorable for your customers. If they enjoyed the experience, they’re likely to come back.
Delight Your Customers
This is again about the customer experience. Like mentioned before, the customer experience doesn’t end after the transaction has taken place. You need to keep making efforts and show to your customers how much you value their relationship.
One way to do that is to delight your customers with surprises. It could be a handwritten note on their birthday, a thoughtful present, or a discount coupon when they were least expecting it.
Implement a Loyalty Program
Rewarding your customers through a loyalty program is a proven and time tested method of customer retention.
Reward your customers with points for every purchase they make. In the case of an online store, you can reward them with points on different actions they perform, like writing a product review, signing up for an account, etc.
The loyalty program can also work with a referral program where the customer is incentivized to share their experience with their peers in exchange for a reward. Referral System for WooCommerce is a plugin that can help you set up a referral program on your WooCommerce site. This plugin is compatible with the WooCommerce Points and Rewards Extension so you can implement both the Loyalty program and Referral program side by side.
Use Automation To Re-engage Customers
Keeping your customers engaged is a constant process. You need to keep making efforts to give them a great experience they’ll remember you by.
But the problem is if you try to do everything yourself, you’ll likely fail.
The key to successful engagement with customers is automation. There are so many tasks that need to be repeated every day, and so, automating them through marketing software is what will make the difference.
Under Promise and Over Deliver
What makes customers happy? When you deliver something that is above what they are expecting.
How do you do that? One way is obviously to improve your service and product quality.
Another way is to under-promise and over-deliver. If you are required to give a time frame of completion, give them an extended time frame but try to deliver the project before the deadline.
Your customers will be delighted to receive it before the expected delivery.
The key to customer retention is to make your customers happy and give them a reason to come back. Loyal customers are your assets. Invest in them.