Keeping Customers: 13 Client Retention Strategies That Work

If there’s no way to precisely measure customer happiness, how are companies supposed to know they are improving? Combine all of the measured inputs that you have around customer experience, along with the qualitative understanding that you have from customer-facing teams, and you’re on the right track. Studies show that up to 70 percent of unhappy customers transform into loyal customers if the mistake has been fixed exceeding their expectations. » Now that you’re equipped with a list full of good customer retention strategies, which will you choose?

Customer insights must be a top priority for a business that seeks to grow. All the data at your disposal must be used to understand and anticipate what a customer wants and provide it. Although the two terms are similar, customer satisfaction is not precisely the same as customer happiness. People are more likely to trust feedback from real customers than sales gurus and extensive marketing campaigns. People don’t want to call customer service to get information or to complete tasks on the website. On the contrary, people see automation as a sign of sophistication, and that reflects well on your brand.

Reasons for Making Your Customer Happy

It’s vital to any business to both listen and connect with your customers. You can learn from firsthand accounts of what is going right or wrong in your strategy. No matter the industry your business is in, you want to make your product or service convenient to partake in.

Your organization must have the ability to understand the value that your brand offers; this allows you to identify potential customers. After determining who they are and qualifying your leads, you can create a customer experience tailored to fit their needs. Not only does this give you a deeper insight into the psychology of your customers, but it also allows you to identify effective strategies for keeping them happy. Pain points are simply problems that your prospective customers may experience while doing business. For instance, a pain point can be a slow-loading website or a delay with customer service response. By eliminating as many of these problems as possible, your company creates a seamless customer experience.

Saying “I’m sorry” is imperative in situations like this, but a investing activities include apology isn’t always enough. The Ritz Carlton, for instance, grants their employees the ability to spend $2000 per customer per day to improve a customer’s experience. It takes so much more effort to rebuild that relationship than it does to communicate effectively, even around difficult topics. Your false promises lead to churn — and maybe even damaging reviews on social media or via word of mouth.

#19. Continuously strive for improvement

Giving happy customers more than they expect will help to ensure that they have a favorable opinion of your business. What can you do to go the extra mile to surprise and impress your customers? Offering a free gift, a discount on their next order, and asking for feedback will ensure they have the best possible experience. Creating consistency across all customer service channels is very important . A brand that is focused on growth must understand that there can be no customer experience gaps. For example, there should be a smooth transition from shopping physically to shopping online.

Tell them how changes in the economy are affecting your business, share your struggles and let them celebrate with you as you grow. This makes them feel like part of the team and increases loyalty. Happiness is definitely the best goal to have as it is useful in terms of branding and an actionable metric to measure your success. Use these 11 steps to plan, build and scale a truly customer-centric business with nothing but happy customers. Enable businesses to easily communicate with customers via their communication channels of choice, whether it’s through voice, text, video, chat, or social media.

#4: Be positive and friendly

“Customer service shouldn’t just be a department, it should be the entire company.” ~Tony Hsieh, CEO of Zappos. Ask about their families, vacation plans, additions to the family. It creates a far deeper level of communication and shows that you are interested in them as individuals. Customers feel their contribution has been valued when they see feedback leads to actions. Measuring CSAT helps you to know the current position and the areas you need to improve.

While you certainly need to delight customers before they make a purchase, keeping them happy after the sale motivates them to come back to your business. Customer loyalty goes a step further with the trust and shared values you build over time. Jaffe goes on in the interview to discuss how proactive customer service can significantly improve satisfaction. In the book, Singh offers this quote as a mission statement for organizations that want to build trust with their customers.

Free eBook to find out what your employees need to keep your customers happy. Happy customers are the main difference between a successful business and one that fails miserably. Yes, it’s true that you also have to have efficient operations and processes, but all the efficiency in the world will not make your business successful if your customer base is unhappy. This quote highlights the importance of the customer’s opinion and how your brand’s reputation influences marketing, sales, and customer service. Most customer support reps are product experts and can get frustrated when working with users who don’t share their level of experience.

Demonstrate through your actions that you consider them to be special and you are thankful for their continued business. This may seem like a no-brainer, but it is worth it to do anything you can to help the customer feel supported. Offering support can be anything from having a live chat option on your website to asking if there is anything else you can help the customer with.

If you find yourself truly stumped — even after clarifying the customer’s issue — don’t give up, and don’t panic. Instead of admitting defeat and saying, “I don’t know”, include the customer in the resolution process. Social media interactions are a great opportunity to gauge a customer’s engagement, their adoption of your product, and their need for further assistance.

The relationship between businesses and customers has evolved a great deal with the rise of social media. A good way for you to create engaging customer-centered content is to assimilate both offline and online events. For instance, any company can sponsor a quarterly online webinar or conference for its clients and customers. One of the reasons that businesses have so much success with Inbound Marketing is that it accomplishes customer acquisitionandretention at the same time.

• While there’s no magic formula to keeping customers satisfied, you can take inspiration from these customer satisfaction quotes.
• Today, customer satisfactionis a key indicator of success, along with customer engagement.
• Join 40,000+ sales and marketing pros who receive our weekly newsletter straight from Marcus Sheridan.
• Instead, address things as soon as possible to prevent unhappy customers from reaching out.
• Happy customers do not abandon you when you make mistakes; they give you a chance.
• Because no business out there can really be in business without a happy customer.

Rider Support Lead, Kyle Harder, notes this challenge in the graphic below. A communication calendar is a chart that keeps track of customer communication. It tells you the last time that a customer has reached out and alerts you when existing customers haven’t interacted with your brand.

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Customer service is your straight gateway to happy customers. Ensure that you are in constant touch with your customers starting from onboarding. This is the time you can actually build a happy and loyal relationship with them. Have a complete understanding of why they are using your product and how to make the experience better for them.

It can act as a resource for sharing useful information related to products and services. Keeping your customers satisfied with your product or service is non-negotiable. It not only encourages them for repeat purchases but also improves your brand credibility with the word of mouth virality.

As a local business, you’re uniquely positioned to get involved with your local community. You can sponsor a local sports team, donate your time to a local organization, or host a canned goods drive for a local food pantry. It’s also important to remember that social media is a two-way street. If you have customers engaging with you, you should be responsive–meaning you reply to their comments, answer their questions, and address their concerns. I’m a huge fan of loyalty programs – give me a stamp card, and I’ll work to fill that bad boy as fast as I can to get a discount or free item. To keep customers happy, emphasize speed and personalization when you address their concerns.

Lay out a method for collecting the success factors — your initial research could be guided by customer surveys, testimonials, or a listening tour. Here are some customer service tips to keep happy customers. Building communities benefit customers to create a positive feeling and improve your brand image.