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Based from Gregory Ciotti blog post -customer retention rate is how well a company keeps its paying customers over a period of time. In addition to that, a low retention rate is similar to filling a bucket with holes in the bottom.
Any other ideas or personal experiences coming from Bayt specialists is highly appreciated.
Customer retention is the ability to keep an organisation's existing customers. It could be improved through effective customer relationship management attainable through the following:
Information sharing: The organisation should be ready to give relevant, responsible and reliable informtion to customers as a prelude to maintaining mutual understanding, trust and confidence. This implies the provision of a two-way interactive platform and system for effective customer understanding and enhance effective response to customer needs
Ensuring a win-win situation: The organisation should keep a database of customer transactions and use it to calculate customer life time value and5% of this value given back to customers in the form of vouchers or goods as a sense of appreciation. This implies that the more customers use the organisation product the more they win; encouraging them to remain loyal and spend more.
Recognition: The organisation should always portray a sense of appreciation and regards by undertaken effective after sale services such as courtesy calls, service evaluation, happy birthday wishes etc.
Provision of sustainable value added services: The organisation should continue to provide customer value added products and services in order to improve customer service experiences positively.
Build strong brand reputation: The organisation should build inspirational brands that customers aspire to connect with sustainable thereby serving as a strong bond for sustainable customer relationship.
In a nutshell, customer retention is all about the ability to effectively and sustainably response to customer growing and complex needs in all circumstances.
Customer service has always been a personal relationship with the clients. As an individual you will do the best possible and even applying the extra miles too. But, in the other side, one hand can’t clap. So, it’s a must that the organization itself should contribute as well to help in the retention process. Improve, develop, market study, and all the tools needed to gain the customers’ satisfaction and loyalty.
1. Reducing Attrition
Virtually every business loses some customers, but few ever measure or recognise how many of their customers become inactive. Most businesses, ironically, invest an enormous amount of time, effort and expense building that initial customer relationship. Then they let that relationship go unattended, in some cases even losing interest as soon as the sale been made, or even worse, they abandon the customer as soon as an easily remedied problem occurs, only to have to spend another small fortune to replace that customer. The easiest way to grow your business is not to lose your customers. Once you stop the leakage, it’s often possible to double or triple your growth rate because you’re no longer forced to make up lost ground just to stand still.
2. Sell and then sell again
So many people do an excellent job of making the initial sale, then drop the ball and get complacent, ignoring the customer, while they chase more business. Your selling has actually only just begun when someone makes that initial purchase decision because virtually everyone is susceptible to buyer’s remorse. To lock in that sale, and all of the referrals and repeat business that will flow from it, you need to strike while the iron is hot to allay your customers’ fears and demonstrate by your actions that you really care. You should thank them and remind them again why they’ve made the right decision to deal with you … and put a system in place to sell to them again, and again, constantly proving that they made the right decision.
3. Bring back the “lost sheep”
There’s little point in dedicating massive resources to generating new customers when 25-60% of your dormant customers will be receptive to your attempts to regenerate their business if you approach them the right way, with the right offer. Reactivating customers who already know you and your product is one of the easiest, quickest ways to increase your revenues. Re-contacting and reminding them of your existence, finding out why they’re no longer buying, overcoming their objections and demonstrating that you still value and respect them will usually result in a tremendous bounty of sales and drastically increased revenues in a matter of days … and will lead to some of your best and most loyal customers.
4. Frequent Communications Calendar
Avoid losing your customers by building relationships and keeping in touch using a rolling calendar of communications. This is a programmed sequence of letters, events, phone calls, “thank you’s”, special offers, follow-ups, magic moments, and cards or notes with a personal touch etc. that occur constantly and automatically at defined points in the pre-sales, sales and post-sales process. People not only respond to this positively, they really appreciate it because they feel valued and important. It acknowledges them, keeps them informed, offsets post-purchase doubts, reinforces the reason they’re doing business with you and makes them feel part of your business so that they want to come back again and again.
5. Extraordinary Customer Service
The never-ending pursuit of excellence to keep customers so satisfied that they tell others how well they were treated when doing business with you. Moving the product or service you deliver into the realm of the extraordinary by delivering higher than expected levels of service to each and every customer. Key facets include: dedication to customer satisfaction by every employee; providing immediate response; no buck passing; going above and beyond the call of duty; consistent on-time delivery; delivering what you promise before AND after the sale; a zero-defects and error-free-delivery process and recruiting outstanding people to deliver your customer service. Extraordinary service builds fortunes in repeat customers, whereas poor service will drive your customers to your competition.
6. Courtesy system
A powerful system that improves the interpersonal skills of your team and changes the spirit of your organisation. It involves speaking to colleagues politely and pleasantly, without sarcasm or parody, and treating them at least as well as you would want them to treat your customers. This will help your team to feel worthwhile and important, which makes for pleasant social contacts at work. It also motivates them to provide extraordinary service, encourages them to be consistently pleasant in all of their dealings and to relate to customers in a warm, human and natural manner. This results in better, warmer, stronger, more trusting relationships and longer term bonds with your customers.
7. Product or service integrity
Long-term success and customer retention belongs to those who do not take ethical shortcuts. There must always be total consistency between what you say and do and what your customers experience. The design, build quality, reliability and serviceability of your product or service must be of the standard your customers want, need and expect. Service integrity is also demonstrated by the way you handle the small things, as well as the large. Customers will be attracted to you if you are open and honest with them, care for them, take a genuine interest in them, don’t let them down and practice what you preach … and they will avoid you if you don’t.
8. Measure lifetime value
There’s a vast difference between the one-off profit you might make on an average sale, which ignores the bigger picture, and the total aggregate profit your average customer represents over the lifetime of their business relationship with you. Once you recognise how much combined profit a customer represents to your business when they purchase from you again and again, over the months, years or decades, you’ll realise the critical importance of taking good care of your customers. And because you’ll understand just how much time, effort and expense you can afford to invest in retaining that customer, you’ll be in control of your marketing expenditure.
9. A complaint is a gift
96 percent of dissatisfied customers don’t complain. They just walk away, and you’ll never know why. That’s because they often don’t know how to complain, or can’t be bothered, or are too frightened, or don’t believe it’ll make any difference. Whilst they may not tell you what’s wrong, they will certainly tell plenty of others. A system for unearthing complaints can therefore be the lifeblood of your business, because customers who complain are giving you a gift, they’re still talking to you, they’re giving you another opportunity to return them to a state of satisfaction and delight them and the manner in which you respond gives you another chance to show what you’re made of and create even greater customer loyalty.
Other customer retention strategies include:
This answer is not written by me but has been copied from http://marketingwizdom.com/strategies/retention-strategies
I do not intend to plagiarize any content but am just trying to provide the solution which i thought was best! :)
Client retention is an enormous factor for the success of agencies, B2B companies, SaaS businesses and many other organizations. In a subscription model, "client retention" means a continuing stream of revenue without the cost or effort of new customer acquisition.
Related: Customer Retention Is No Accident -- How Small Business Can Get It Right
And, in a standard product model, it means more total purchases for each new customer. The bottom line? Better customer retention means more revenue and a better brand reputation.
But how can you improve customer retention? The obvious answer is to make your products and services better, but that’s both ambiguous and non-directed. Instead, consider these 10 simple, specific ways you can up your customer retention game and strengthen the bottom line for your business:
1. Manage expectations.
Everything begins with expectations. If your customers expect phenomenal results and just get good results, they’ll be disappointed. If they expect decent results and get good results, they’ll be ecstatic. Obviously, if you set expectations too low, they won’t go with your company in the first place. So strive to set moderate, realistic expectations for your long-term performance.
2. Deliver more than you promised.
The next step of the process is to deliver more than you promised -- which means going above and beyond the call of duty and giving your customers things they didn’t expect. For example, you 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. Stay transparent.
If customers feel that they can’t trust you, they’re going to leave. The best way to build and maintain this trust is to stay as transparent as possible, giving your customers as much information as they need. This includes staying in regular communication with meetings and updates, and proactively addressing problems before they become any worse.
4. Encourage loyalty.
Give your customers a reason to stick with you rather than go to a new competitor. This requires a bit of creative thinking, but try to find some unique selling point for them to stay with your brand -- it could be the provision of compounding benefits, a disadvantage to withdrawing after a certain point or ongoing additions that make your customers feel that your service gets consistently better.
5. Get personal.
Even though many of your client partnerships will be based on a company-to-company partnership, at the center of your relationship will be the engagement of one person with another. Accordingly, it’s in your best interest to add personal touches to your interactions: Hand-written notes, small gifts and personal exchanges are all valuable additions here.
6. Stay top of mind.
The last thing you want is to operate in the background. When your brand stays top of mind, it’s immediately perceived as more valuable and integral, meaning that the more a customer sees your brand, the less likely he or she will be to leave. You can accomplish this by improving your content marketing efforts, sending out regular newsletters or otherwise reaching out to your clients on a consistent basis.
For example, all of my clients receive a personalized weekly update, regardless of how much progress has been made. I’ve found that this helps retention rates dramatically.
7. Prove your value.
If you can objectively prove that your company is adding more value to clients than it costs them to pay for your services, there’s no logical reason for them to ever leave. When reporting, always focus on measurable results, and aim to be as logical as possible. That way, you’ll have an edge if your client makes a bottom-line decision.
8. Be there when things go wrong.
No client relationship is perfect; things are going to go wrong. Some of those things will be your fault, and some won’t. Regardless of how or why they arose, your responsibility is to tell your clients what’s going on, and be proactive in trying to address the situation. Otherwise, they will have a good reason to leave.
9. Change.
Good companies don’t stay in one position for too long: They add new updates, evolve with the times and are always searching for ways to do more for their customers. Simply changing your processes and offers from time to time is a demonstration of value, and will keep your customers around longer.
10. Accept feedback.
You don’t know what your customers really need unless you ask. Conduct regular surveys and request feedback from all your clients. You never know what you might be missing -- and what areas need improvement.
Customer retention isn’t something you can switch on at the highest levels of your business as a one-time effort. Instead, it’s something you have to work at and improve, constantly, at the individual level. Every member of your team should work to maximize his/her ability to retain customers, and there should never be a point where you’re content enough to stop improving. It’s an ongoing process, so keep improving.
Speak in their language at their preferable time using their favourite media of communication. Constant engagement is the key for customer retention apart from offering consistent value proposition through your product and services.
by folow with customer by phone and alywes contact customer and give him all new offers
First impression matters and continuous good impression matters most. Keeping your first good impression which you use to win a customers afresh in his or her memories keeps him or her. Giving the customer attention when there is problem with the product or service. Also apologize and making up when need be.
Based from Gregory Ciotti blog post -customer retention rate is how well a company keeps its paying customers over a period of time. In addition to that, a low retention rate is similar to filling a bucket with holes in the bottom.
Any other ideas or personal experiences coming from Bayt specialists is highly appreciated.
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