- A high customer retention rate means that consumers are coming back to your website after their initial purchase for renewals or new products.
- Existing customers will make up a majority of your future sales.
- Success teams can identify and solve pain points for customers who have already bought something from your business.
- Implementing customer feedback and loyalty programs are great ways to get one-time patrons to become lifelong customers.
- Engagement is vital for building trust, which is a core component of retention.
If you're a marketer or business owner, your goal is to get as many customers as possible to stay invested in your company after their initial purchase. The percentage of people who come back for repeat purchases or renewals compared to your overall customers is your retention rate.
There's a common financial adage called the 80/20 rule. This rule states that 20% of your existing customers comprise 80% of your overall sales. If you review your sales data, you'll find that it's generally true that consumers who have previously shopped at your business spend more and come back multiple times.
A high customer retention rate is hard to achieve but well worth the effort. The more customers you have invested in your brand, the better chance you have of growing your business and product line over time.
We are going to take a look at four actionable customer retention tricks you can start using today.
Create a success team
Do you know the difference between customer service and success teams? Customer service teams help consumers when they have a problem, like a damaged product or a customer needs help with billing. A customer success team helps existing consumers get the most value from the product or service they purchased.
Success teams are common in SaaS businesses, but some e-commerce stores have followed suit and now have customer success teams. When someone completes a purchase on your website, send them an email and let them know that you have a team available to help if they want to learn about all of the features available with their purchase.
The result is that consumers become educated on what you're selling and see the value proposition as much more appealing than they initially thought. Now that they see all the benefits of sticking with your company, there's a better chance that customers in this position will come back, which improves your retention rate.
Gather and implement customer feedback
Customer feedback is an essential part of growing your business. Creating new products, tweaking your website for a positive user experience, and creating detailed consumer profiles is nearly impossible without listening to subscribers and customers.
There are several ways you can gather feedback and implement what you've learned to improve your business and customer retention rate. If you don't have a contact form on your website, you need to build one if you hope to hear from the people who browse your website. Make sure you ask specific questions on your contact and feedback forms to gather accurate data.
For instance, you could ask people who have visited your website to tell you how you could improve the experience next time. Instead of using a multiple-choice answer, leave it open-ended so customers can tell you precisely what they expect from your brand.
Let's say you survey visitors; you're reviewing the feedback and notice that over 50% of the people who responded said that the checkout process on your site is too complicated. Clearly, there's a problem when consumers try to complete a purchase on your site. Now you can get your development team together to find out what went wrong and solve the problem.
The willingness to listen to consumers and their needs, while implementing these significant changes, will help you retain more people over time.
Offer a loyalty program
Loyalty programs are a great way to entice consumers to come back to your store after their first purchase. Everyone from Starbucks to Uber implements a loyalty system where they give customers points based on their purchases.
Loyalty programs help keep consumers engaged on your website, and there are plenty of options to choose from. Some business owners may prefer a simple points system where they give consumers back a percentage of their purchase as in-store credit, which they can use at a later date. The idea here is that when the customer comes back to use their points, they will spend more than what they have, which results in an additional sale and more loyalty points for the consumer.
Some businesses use their email marketing campaign as a tool to encourage customer loyalty. These marketers create campaigns designed to reward customers who take the time to open their email with an exclusive discount or gift.
Engage on all platforms
Did you know that the average person spends two hours and 22 minutes on social media every single day? You can see why business owners and marketers strive to improve their social media marketing campaigns when they want to boost customer retention.
Platforms like Twitter, Instagram and Facebook are excellent tools for growing your audience and keeping customers interested in your business. A recent report revealed that 43% of consumers want more video content from brands. Many brands are repurposing their content for YouTube to ensure it resonates with consumers.
Similarly, Facebook Groups is an excellent place to find new and existing customers and see what they are saying about your brand. You can this tool to engage with consumers in the comments sections and direct them to blog posts on your website if they have a question that your team has covered.
While we are on the topic of blog posts, adding social share buttons to your blog helps your posts travel social media faster. The ability to share your post without leaving your website ensures that customers don't get distracted and that they stay engaged with your brand.
Conclusion
You need people to continuously engage with your company through social media, email, and on your website. As your audience grows, you may notice a shift in your repeat customers and how much they spend. You must keep an eye on these statistics so you can stay ahead of the curve when you're planning future marketing content. Additionally, you'll learn more about your target audience in real time, which can help you train your team to meet the needs of visitors before they think about looking at one of your competitors.
Focusing on customer success and feedback, all while engaging and rewarding loyalty, results in more people coming back to your online store after their first purchase. Every business is different; these tricks may require some tweaks, depending on your industry. Use your best judgment and trial and error to find a customer retention strategy that works for you.