Just the term “customer retention strategy” sounds intimidating and complicated. But it doesn’t have to be.
A customer retention strategy can be as simple as following up with customers at the critical points when customer satisfaction (or dissatisfaction) tends to occur. The follow up can be in person, via email (or html emailer) or phone, and it should include an inquiry about their satisfaction and some reinforcing information about the benefits of your service.
The inquiry about their satisfaction should be sincere, not perfunctory, and you should certainly be prepared to fully handle any dissatisfaction reported. But the true key to success is to develop steps and processes to handle issues before they occur.
Start a list of all the customer issues that have come up in the past year or so. It might seem like a long list at first, but you are guaranteed to see common threads that will reduce that list to something manageable. Then, reverse-promote those circumstances — in other words, anticipate them ahead of time and provide action plans on how customers can address them either on their own or with your help. Either is fine, as long as you provide them with a plan on what to do.
For example, if you are a management consultant, and you know that customers tend to struggle at the following points:
1. When they first have to apply the principles learned in a practical circumstance.
2. When they have to repeat a practice with multiple employees at at time.
3. Down the road, when the problem reoccurs and they don’t remember how they solved or addressed the issue last time.
You can prepare an email correspondence to auto-send that would coach them on how to handle the issue, so they have reinforcement of it when they need to repeat it or need apply it to different circumstances down the road.
The simple act of anticipating problems that might occur is very reassuring for customers. It reminds them that you are the expert and that you know what might come up. It reminds them that you care and are willing to help if a problem occurs. In a large percentage of instances, just empowering customers to know what to do on their own de-escalates the problem to a manageable level and gives them the ability to address the issue on their own.
Making such an investment in your customer increases the chances of them becoming an ongoing, repeat customer who will refer you and build your brand reputation. It might be the least expensive way to make repeat sales out there.
Now out to you. How is your customer retention policy working?
— Chris Quinn, principal and brand strategist
Photo by pixelperfectdigital.com
