These days, customer retention is everything – a brand's loyal clients, which may make up only 20 percent of its overall customer base, can be responsible for as much as 80 percent of its profits. What's more, it's incredibly more expensive to attract new buyers than it is to retain those that have purchased from the brand in the past – five times more costly, to be exact, according to statistics gathered by Annex Cloud.
Despite this, less than one-third of all execs rate customer retention as a top priority. Now is the time for this to change, and for decision-makers to focus more on improving retention and the relationships they have with customers. Here are a few easy steps to help along that journey:
1) Understand why customers leave in the first place
"A brand's loyal clients can be responsible for as much as 80 percent of its profits."
Every business, no matter how high quality their offered customer experience and support, will lose customers at one point or another. Herein lies the first step to improving retention: These departing clients provide you with the opportunity to learn why they moved away from the brand and how you can prevent it in the future.
Amati & Associates founder Filiberto Amati told NG Data that once business leaders understand why customers are leaving, it's important to make an effort to reach out to existing customers, appreciate their business and welcome any feedback.
"You can't solve a problem if you don't understand to what extent it exists or why it exists," Amati said.
2) Manage expectations – and then go above and beyond
As Entrepreneur contributor Jayson DeMers noted, customer expectations can be tricky. Set the bar too low, and consumers will head toward your competitors. Promise customers the moon but then fall short of delivery, and chances are good there will be considerable disappointment.
In this way, brands must create a careful balance here and set moderate, achievable expectations for customers, but then provide more whenever possible.
"[Go] above and beyond the call of duty and [give] your customers things they didn't expect," DeMers suggested. "[Y]ou could offer a free bonus (like a product, discount or value-add) out of the blue, or anticipate a new customer need and address it proactively."
3) Be transparent
Now that businesses are more visible than ever to their customers – including on their own brand websites, social media pages and more – it's important to breed consumer trust through transparency.
Customers don't want to be in the dark concerning their recent order, and appreciate as much information as possible. And with a robust order management system in your side – which we'll discuss more in-depth below – you'll have all the detail and capabilities you need to ensure a high level of transparency in your connections with customers.
4) Understand your customers and keep things organized
Having a 360-degree view of each individual customer is something that can be difficult to achieve – but is absolutely imperative in today's business environment. Thankfully, robust OMS technology can ensure that your organization has a simple way to keep customer information organized and to manage relations throughout the customer lifecycle.
