There’s an old saying that goes, “The best clients are the ones you already have.” This is true for most businesses, although good customer retention may look different depending on your industry.
Your clients are the ones who drive your business and move it forward. Without them, you would get nowhere. However, most people focus their marketing on attracting new clients, forgetting that client retention also contributes to sales growth.
So, what holds most people back from focusing on getting better customer retention rates? Sometimes, it is simply a lack of knowing which online tools are available to gather insight on customer satisfaction. Often it’s also a case of not putting in the effort to keep your existing clients loyal to your brand. This piece reviews some of the most common mistakes companies make with improving customer retention.
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Customer Behavior
Analytics offer a way for you to understand how your current customers interact with your brand. By looking closely at this data, you can develop a model of the kind of customer who is likely to stick with you for the long term. On the flip side, you can also spot the kinds of behavior that are red flags the customer is about to abandon your company. By intervening before that happens, you can hang on to those customers, thereby improving your retention rate.
Here is the kind of information you should know about your customers:
- How this customer discovered our brand
- What level of subscription does this client hold
- Last interaction with a member of the sales or customer support team
- Last time the client requested an upgrade or downgrade
By tracking data, you can dig deeper and get better insights into current customer behavior.
You can go even deeper than this basic information. To use your existing sales data to learn more about user journey and engagement, try some of the following tools from Baremetrics:
- People Insights: To use metrics to create informative profiles of each customer
- Segmentation: To develop comparative insights between customers
- Analytics API: Extend the power and functionality of Baremetrics into every part of your business.
Mistake Two: Not Re-Engaging With Past Clients
You don’t have to write off your old clients as a lost cause. You might want to re-strategize and see what works best to excite your previous clients to work with you again. Listening to your prior clients’ experiences and responding with new packages and platform functionality can make them want to come back.
Once you have them again, it is important for your sales and customer support team to stay engaged with those clients to ensure satisfaction. If old clients sign up again, and then promptly cancel, you haven’t done much to improve your retention rate.
Mistake Three: Not Asking for Feedback
When your clients feel seen, heard, and understood, they will stay with you. The best evidence that you see, hear, and understand client feedback is that you make concrete changes in response to feedback. Ask for that feedback through regular check-ins over email or phone.
Strive for honesty with your clients and let them know you are open to honest and constructive critiques. Once you have listened to the feedback, it is time to make changes where necessary.
Mistake Four: Not Making Customer Relationships a Priority
The relationships you build determine the height of your success. If you are focusing all of your investments on digital tools but still not grasping your clients’ current concerns, you must work to fill that gap. Everything begins with communication, and sometimes it’s best to have that offline if necessary.
Start with two important things:
- Being responsive
- Being proactive
Being responsive means making yourself available for customer support, answering questions, and asking what steps your brand can take to provide additional value. Being proactive requires that you do not wait for clients to come with complaints. You take the initiative to pick up the phone or send out that email.
Easier Customer Retention With Baremetrics
Once you are aware of your customer retention mistakes, how do you calculate—and improve—your retention rate? You need to gain basic insights about your customers then plan accordingly. By measuring retention rates for specific groups, you can customize your sales and marketing strategies to meet the needs of each customer segment.
