Today, businesses need to expand their horizons and explore more opportunities. It’s no longer enough to do what you’re good at. Why? Because, with this age of digitalization all around us, the competition has started to thrive in ways they never even imagined before. In short – you must get better, faster, or else suffer consequences that may be direr than you could have ever imagined. But fret not! For we are here to help you keep your leads engaged by making sure that they do not stray or lose interest in what you have going on simply because of the daily technological advancements being made around them everywhere they turn.

What is Customer Retention?
Put simply, customer retention is about ensuring we don’t lose customers. You can only do this by having a steady employee flow which is carefully planned out ahead of time, aimed at people and profiles in line with your company’s values. It involves making sure everyone on the team has a sponsor who helps them settle into their role as well as offering guidance for employees as to how they can grow in their roles over time through promoting from within schemes and other avenues. More than just getting people to join the business, it is showing employees that you are committed to helping them succeed and that you have an eye for quality. Many companies focus more attention on acquiring new clients so they can have revenue coming in, while leaving existing clients hanging in the wind with little support (which leads to the client looking elsewhere).

Retaining customers may be difficult, but your business gets an A+ in customer retention if it makes sure its customers are well informed. Businesses use a variety of strategies and tactics to help keep their customers informed because every satisfied customer is another potential client that could turn into a repeat buyer over time. For example, email marketing is a great tactic for marketing within the quickly changing e-commerce atmosphere where there’s always something new around the corner to tempt potential customers away from your website. Businesses would seem clueless if they weren’t able to offer promotions or ongoing incentives to encourage current buyers to return again and again by advertising on well thought out social media sites based on target demographics!

Importance of customer retention
Historically speaking, companies have often undervalued what importance customer retention plays in the life of a company. They have tended to put greater focus on trying to acquire new customers while totally neglecting their existing loyal customer base which has made up 44% of the market by value. A lot of managers and entrepreneurs these days seem to be wrongfully believing that growth only happens through acquiring new clientele, overlooking the data which shows that many potential clients who liked your brand once before will return if they are treated right.

The importance of customer retention is becoming increasingly understood by more brands and marketers. As a result, companies are investing more in retaining customers because existing customers have a 70% likelihood of making a purchase (as compared to 20% for new customers) and that the first purchase, on average, represents about 20% of their total spending over their lifetime, which is significantly higher than with first-time customers. More importantly, research has shown that an average online retailer earns as much as 40% of its revenue from only 8% of its visitors due to the value these few create for the company.

Retaining customers should be a top priority in your company’s marketing efforts. It’s typically more economical to retain paying clients than it is to go out and acquire new ones! According to several surveys, companies report that retaining existing “loyal” customers may cost anywhere from 5x – 25x less than acquiring new ones. In fact, according to various surveys conducted by the Harvard Business Review (HBR), IT consultancy firm Computer Services Corp and others, retaining an existing customer is generally 5x more expensive than acquiring a new one.

Also, smart companies know that now is truly the best time to acquire customers simply because consumers can no longer purchase products based solely on price or quality. Customers are going to be making decisions based on things like a brand’s social impact and will become more conscious of how fun it is when they’re shopping. If a company decides to focus their efforts on gaining new customers, they have effectively mastered the game. Today, savvy brands cash out and continue to gain new customers because those who do so are ahead of the curve with engagement technology and are able to find real ways for people to not just consume their products but also engage with them in a whole new way.

How to build successful customer retention
To compete and survive, it’s becoming more and more crucial for brands to adopt a personal approach to customer service. Consumers now have an unlimited number of choices through online shopping – and they need to be wowed to keep making purchases with you as their trusted brand. Two-thirds of consumers make more frequent product transactions in the hopes that they will receive exclusive experiences with the brand they love, proving that customers are motivated by special perks and rewards.

The best way to retain customers is to try and figure out what you can do for them that will make them feel as though they are getting more value. The first place to start is by identifying your goals when it comes down to taking care of customer retention. With customer retention goals in mind, the next step is to find out what customers need to do to meet those goals. Perhaps offering money off their next purchase would show commitment on their part if they’re just one-time buyers. Or perhaps they need frequent reminders of why they bought from you the first time so that they stay motivated. ​Either way, it’s important not to underestimate what it means when dealing with customer retention since knowing how things work beforehand will increase your chances at success after all! It’s always a good idea to have a couple of strategies up your sleeve before deploying any new tactics in case some of them don’t work out as anticipated.

After identifying the metrics you’ll be using, ensure that all your decisions are keeping customers at the forefront of your minds. It is also important to ensure that you’re setting yourself up for success as a business so that your customers keep coming back to you. To do this, it’s vital to build a tech stack that can flex with changing consumer behaviors and new technologies, and whatever else may happen in the future, so that there aren’t any barriers to accessing or experiencing what it is that you offer or special offers which may take advantage of these potential changes and improvements.

5 Customer Retention Tactics Your Brand Should Use Right Now
1. Building a long-term relationship with customers is essential
Building a solid reputation for any company, no matter what size or scope, is vital to its success. This can only be achieved when the company itself delivers an experience for the customer that is relevant and of value at each stage of the service or product lifecycle from initial awareness to sales and beyond. To build a strong foundation of trust-based relationships with customers, it is important that every interaction you have with them is guided by this goal in mind and not simply how much money can be made in either direction. One way to build trust with customers. By making sure they always know exactly what will happen next once they become a customer, so that they achieve the best possible outcome with their own interactions before returning.

2. Enhance customer loyalty by creating a strong program
Do you have a loyalty program for your company’s brand? If so, has it proven effective and is it enjoying an ROI? Perhaps your brand is just beginning to redesign their customer retention efforts and is looking for some experts. Whichever of the two case studies you fall under, there are several companies out there offering loyalty programs which can help dramatically increase your bottom line with less effort.

3. Utilize the data you have about your customers
You need to understand your customers while they are still customers to retain them. Unlike the long and demanding task of taking a giant sample survey, collecting data related specifically to your customers will give you a more in-depth understanding of why they do business with you. Your mindset should be on what you can do for them. For example, if you have records stating that a particular customer did not enjoy the last few meals ordered from your restaurant, then what could be done differently next time? This might involve asking better questions about their preferences or possibly tailoring their orders depending on the information available from other individuals who like what this specific one does not.

4. Utilize marketing automation to re-engage customers
Often, marketing automation solutions are missing the mark in one way or another because they don’t utilize the power of AI and ML. Thankfully for companies that do, using AI and ML for re-engaging customers is a rather simple process. To automatically recognize when lapsed customers are likely to relapse, marketers can take advantage of numerous tools on the market today, tools that cater specifically to recognizing patterns in historical data as well as analysing other predictive external data sources (i.e., census data, geolocation data) or even social indicators through analysing big data sets and so much more. Then, once historical patterns have been detected, it takes little effort to develop automatic triggers that will engage with customers at any given moment when their likelihood to revert to the original product or service is the highest – like personalized email messages sent immediately after they’ve bounced or fully logged out of your website!

5. Determine the customer’s lifetime value
Lifetime Value, or CLV, is an estimate of the net profit attributed to your brand’s future interactions with a customer. Doing this, you will be better prepared to make decisions and take care of customers who don’t necessarily give you much profitability in the short run but could potentially boost your profits through investments over the long haul (CLV). If a customer has brought in $500,000 and she has expenses of $300,000 it means that her lifetime value is $200,000. You can use an online calculator to figure out exactly if someone’s truly worth it.

Your business will be doing more harm than good if you focus on new clients instead of your current ones. It’s important to keep in mind that while acquiring new clients is good and helpful, it’s a necessity to focus on keeping your current ones happy.

Let’s make it easier for your customers to do business with you and prevent them from defecting. At Philomath Research, we have a team of professional experts that allows you to get more out of your current customer base than ever before. With the help of Philomath Research, you can keep your current customers happy, which will have a tremendous positive impact on your overall business. The bottom line is that your current customers are an untapped market, and they can provide great revenue opportunities if you treat them right.

For further information, contact us at www.philomathresearch.com