Customer Retention & Customer Experience: Strategies that Works

Customer Retention
Image Credit: Pexels

Introduction

Do you know customer retention and how it can transform your business? You must have heard about this term from time to time. If you are a part of the e-commerce arena, your goal will be to have a high retention rate.

Making regular and repeated customers is easier and cheaper than hunting new ones. More customer retention means you will have a higher return on investment and exponential business growth.  

It may look simple, but retaining customers is a complete science. You must build a cohesive strategy to make customers love your brand so they keep coming back to you.

Need help in this regard? In this guide, we will unveil some fantastic strategies for customer retention, so keep on reading!

Benefits of Customer Retention Strategy

Firstly, let’s talk about why customer retention strategies are worth applying and what benefits you’ll get from them.

1. Built the Customers’ Loyalty

A customer retention strategy will help you to build customer loyalty. You have to stay in touch with your customers through different channels. Capture the feedback of the customer and try to improve your shortcomings.

The customer will trust you and develop a strong connection with your brand.

Another thing that will help you build the customers’ loyalty is to stay relevant and target the customer’s pain points. Don’t overload them with irrelevant information.

2. Increase the bottom line of your business

Other than that, it also increases the customer’s lifetime value. The success rate will increase by 5%, and besides the success rate, the profit also increases by 30-90%.

Hence, your business will grow its bottom lines, and you can generate high revenue.

3. Develop lasting customer relationships

This strategy will let you develop a long-lasting relationship with your customers. The customers become loyal to your brand and are more likely to return.

Once they trust your brand, they will buy products only from your brand, even if it is more expensive than others.

4. Longtime customers can become Brand ambassadors

Customers with long-term relationships can also become your Brand Ambassadors. We mainly use the products our friends or family recommend, so word of mouth is still the best marketing strategy.

Your long-term customers always recommend your brand to others and bring in more sales.

5. Regular customers only trust your products

If you have long-term and permanent customers, they will trust your products more than any other Brand. Even if your products are more expensive than the other brands, they will still prefer yours.

They will eagerly buy something new that your brand will introduce whenever they visit your company.

6. Dealing with long-term customers is easy

Your loyal customers are well aware of your product’s quality and rates. Hence, it becomes easier for you to deal with old customers than new ones.

On the other hand, if the customers are new, you must tell them everything about your brand and convince them to purchase your products.

Yet old customers already know about your brand and will buy your products without hesitation or convincing.

How to calculate the customer retention rate?

Calculation of the customer retention rate is a simple task. Follow the following steps to get this job done!

1. First, you must know how many customers there are at the end of the week or a month.

2. Then subtract new customers you have made during this calculation period.

3. Afterward, divide the number of customers you had at the beginning of this period.

4. And lastly, multiply the remaining by 100.

The formula for calculating the customer retention rate will be following:

Customer Retention Rate

Customer retention rate = (Customers at the end of the period – customers acquired)÷ customers at the beginning of the period × 100

Importance of customer retention strategy for an Online Business

The brands get a 60-70% success rate if they sell their products to existing customers, while if they sell their products to new customers, they get a 5-10% success rate.

If your customers are loyal and permanent, they can help fuel your business during tough times. So, apply the retention strategies to grow your business exponentially.

You can get an advantage from your loyal customers in three ways.

1. 60% of your customers will tell their family and friends about your products. They will recommend your products at their events and gatherings. Chances are, other people will use your products on their recommendation.

In this way, your sales will grow, and so will your business.

2. 52% of your customers will join your loyalty program. A loyalty program means they will also recommend your Brand products to other people and will prefer them for permanent use of your brand’s products.

3. 39% of the customers will prioritize your products over others. Even if the other products are cheaper than your products, they will give preference to your brand.

20 Detailed Strategies that Work

The experience you provide your customers will decide whether they will keep buying from you. If you provide excellent customer experiences, they will be loyal to you and stay with your brand forever.

They share their feedback and encourage them to buy from you.

Want to know how you can persuade your customers and increase the retention rate?

Scroll down to read some of the proven retention strategies that will help you grow your business with minimal effort!

1. Prioritize your customers’ experience

Your interaction and your behavior with your customers have a significant influence on your customer’s perceptions.

Considering the quality of your services, they will decide whether they should stay with your brand.

You can set good examples if you create excellent and consistent customer behavior.

2. Resolve your customer’s issues as soon as possible

Longer response time has a destructive impact on customers. Quick responses to customers should be your primary duty. Provide live chat services to your best customers with a high retention rate.

50% of the customers buy the product if they find a quick response to their queries. That’s why you should prioritize sorting out your customers’ issues quickly.

3. Provide real-time engagement to customers

Make sure that your team is providing real-time engagement to customers. They can engage the customers with video chats and co-browsing.

Try to deliver faster solutions in the first interaction with customers.

You can guide them properly using real-time and visual tools and give practical answers to their queries.

4. Use the customer’s account

Using customers’ accounts can make repurchasing easier for the customers. Customers can have instant access to their previous orders. Moreover, one can prefill their shipping information with their last shipping.

Customers can create their accounts after placing their first order. It will help them put their next orders quickly without rewriting the essential information.

5. Start a retention program

One of the vital retention strategies is to start a loyalty program for your customers. It will help you increase your sales, ultimately increasing your profit.

Customers are motivated to buy more products when they know they will be rewarded.

6. Send discounts to customers after the first purchase

Also, when you provide value to customers for the next order after their first purchase, they are tempted to purchase more. Deals never fail to grab customers’ attention.

7. Take regular feedback from customers

You must take feedback from your customers. If the input is good, it is fine, but if the feedback is wrong, it will give you a chance to improve the quality of your products.

Taking feedback from customers is crucial for every kind of business. It is because the feedback collection will let you know how well or poorly you are performing.

8. Send engaging emails to customers

You can build a good relationship with customers by sending them engaging emails. Send emails to customers before and after purchasing the product.

First, let them know about the products, and after purchasing, send them to thank you for an email. Pretty simple.

9. Improve your customer support

Besides, you can communicate with your customers more effectively through support systems. You can use them to answer your buyers’ repetitive queries.

10. Use automation to re-engage your customers

So many processes must be repeated daily and take a lot of time. So, you can use marketing automation to keep your customers up-to-date.

11. Delivery of consistent Omni channel customer service

Customers are expecting contextualized engagement. They engage with businesses that understand their journey and are ready to deliver a personalized service experience.

Customers interact with you on different channels, so you must know how to reduce their frustration. It will fill the gap between your brand and customers.

12. Make your customers delightful

Businesses should deliver a delightful experience to their customers. Never hesitate to go the extra mile to reach the level of customers’ expectations.

13. Offer fast delivery of the products

Customers feel frustrated when they receive late orders. Many customers leave the cart due to late delivery of products. So try to deliver the order as soon as possible.

14. Make the returning process easy

If the customers do not like the product, then there should be an easy return. Making returns easy builds the trust of the customer in the brand.

15. Create a referral program

Create a referral program for your customers that will allow them to refer your brand to others.

16. Create a communication calendar

Make a communication calendar for your products, which will be beneficial for working on your content strategy.

You can add a sequence of events, special offers, phone calls, etc., to this communication calendar.

17. Measure customer lifetime value

Don’t forget to measure your customer’s lifetime value, as it will help you know your customer’s worth over time.

18. Learn from customers’ complaints

For retention, you must learn from the customer’s complaints and make sure not to repeat the same mistakes.

19. Provide awareness about your products

Providing awareness about your products will let your customers engage with your brand. When they visit your website, they will engage with your relevant content.

20. Maintain customer communication with newsletters

Stay in touch with your customers through email newsletters. It helps businesses to attract new prospects and build lasting relationships with customers.

What is good customer retention?

There are some ideas and strategies that most organizations implement to keep their customers with them. These ideas and strategies are known as customer retention.

The repeated customers increase in number through these tips, and the brand extracts additional value from these customers. Customers make repeated purchases with such brands because they are satisfied with their services.

Repeated customers make their contribution to the growth and development of your business. All this process depends upon how you deal with your customers in the first meeting.

After that, this contact continues for a lifetime.

A/B tests

A/B test helps conduct experiments to observe the lag. Do A/B tests to know the effect of your customers’ retention strategy.

It will occur weeks and even months after the starting event.

Examples

1. Starbucks

starbucks

Starbucks has two customer retention strategies. Its loyalty program is utilized through the mobile app, encouraging repeat customers.

Many customers use the QR code to install the app and place orders.

2. Apple

apple

Apple retains its customers by focusing on innovation. They not only introduce the products but also tell us how they can be helpful for you. In this way, they make long-term customers.

3. TOMS

TOMS

Source: toms.com

TOMS retains its customers by investing 1/3 of its profits in grassroots efforts. They create change at the local level.

Customer Experience

Customer Experience (CX)

For any business or company, it all comes down to its customers. You can have an out-of-the-world service or product, but it is useless if no one buys it. So, along with a solid marketing strategy and sales team, a good customer experience is crucial.

Customer Experience refers to the interaction experience of your customer with your team, website, or outlet. It is the perception or impression of your customers about your product and services.

It is a company’s growth and development benchmark. We have brought these simple tips on enhancing your system so your CX is beyond par.

CX is different from the product quality or services you offer. It is more of understanding how your sales team treats them and how apt they are to help them with their problems.

A company with a good client experience strategy beats a company with a higher quality product of a similar type but lags in a good experience. As the saying goes, “You can kill with a smile.” Similarly, appropriately and compassionately dealing with customers can increase sales and revenue.

Key Takeaway:

CX is crucial for a customer choosing your brand over your competitors.

Six Ways to Improve Customer Experience

Here is how you can deliver a good and positive CX:

1. Devise a multichannel strategy

With multiple-channel connectivity, the quality and effectiveness of customer interaction elevate immensely. Use different sources such as email, phone number, chat box or app, etc.

The connection is consistent throughout the process, and with an integrated system, the customer can continue from the point they left on any channel.

2. Be available 24/7

Problems with customers and online sales do not happen only between office hours. So a customer service team should be available 24/7. It helps build reliability and trust that they always have your back.

3. Give a personalized experience

Customers have different ages, demographics, tastes, and ethnicities, so dealing with them would require a different approach. The same plan for all won’t work. Instead, try to give your users recommendations and empathize with them on their level.

It will make them feel unique and valued.

4. Use of AI and the latest technology

Automated chat boxes, Chabots (chat robots), and other latest tools help engage the customer even when no human is present.

The AI-powered system will detect the customer’s needs, emotions, etc., and give prompt and relevant responses, making them feel heard instantly and consciously.

5. Feedback forms

Build up a feedback system for improving customer CX. Survey forms, feedback messages at the end of the call, or other feedback channels from customers aid in developing better customer service.

Take in all the feedback, analyze it, take the required steps, and then monitor how they improve service via the feedback loop.

6. Train your service teams and empower them

Your customer service team is on the front line facing the customers. Your whole CX depends on that. Train your customer agents immaculately and assign them enough to make minimal decisions to cater to customer needs.

It will give them a feeling of authority and value in the company. This happy feeling in the customer service team will reciprocate in the customer dealing enduring a good CX.

What are the main components of CX?

Many factors contribute to making up a great CX strategy. But the main three elements that play the pivotal role in giving an impeccable CX are:

1. Knowing what they want

The first key to helping the customer is to understand their intent. The first key to helping the customer is to understand their meaning. What are they looking for? What are the problems with the channel or product?

Or what they want to know about? Once you get that right, you can help them appropriately and efficiently. In addition to that, the success or result of the interaction, if positive, is counted as a good experience.

2. Customer Effort

Another central point in client experience is the customer’s effort into the process. A self-service platform is always better because they find it easy and faster. If they can report or inquire from the automatic panel and get their answers instantly, it will add to a good experience.

3. Personalization and value

Apart from quick answers and getting the intent right, you show your customers they are genuinely valued. Listen to them and give them a personalized experience rather than just using similar terms and answers.

Offering them attentive and focused service, additional discounts, or recommendations they might like will encourage them to stay longer and trust more.

Benefits of managing CX

If a company screws up in the CX department, it won’t excel no matter how much it invests in its products, engaging ads, or genius marketing strategy. 

Some of the main advantages that a reasonable CX offers are:

1. Increased number of loyal customer

 A happy customer is a loyal customer. If you deal with your customers, help them, listen to their complaints, and rectify them, they won’t go anywhere. A Good CX is essential in building long-term and loyal customers for your brand.

2. Better brand image and value

Customer reviews and experience are the organic marketing you get. If a customer goes from your store frustrated, it will send the wrong impression to the outside market. 

Positive customer interaction leads to a positive message, improving your brand image and leaving its value, attracting more potential customers.

3. More customer retention

Higher satisfaction among customers and a prompt customer service team will boost the trust and reliability of your brand. In addition, it results in retaining more and more customers to make repeated sales and conversions. 

4. Elevated sales

With delightful experience and valued interaction, it is super easy for a client to purchase and trust the brand. Furthermore, engaging the customers leads to boosted sales, and they tend to buy more products than planned.

Additionally, they come again for further purchases afterward, too.

How to measure CX?

Along with implementing a compelling CX strategy, observing the performance side by side is imminent. It will give you insight into how your steps affect the CX.

Parameters used to measure CX are:

1. Average response time

The company takes time to respond to a customer query or complaint—the less the average response time, the better the CX.

2. Net Promoter Score

This score is the customer’s rating about how they feel about your service. In addition, it indicates the percentage of chances that they would recommend your service to their family, friends, or colleagues.

3. Customer satisfaction points

It is similar to the Net Promoter Score but is more in-depth and consists of customizable questions and scoring sections. With this parameter, a company can know how satisfied its customers are, what they can do better, and what domain they lack.

4. A score of customer effort

This parameter or score highlights the customer’s main pain points or hurdles in the journey. The task was difficult for them, and how much effort they had to put in.

Best customer experience management tools in 2023

1. REVE Chat

It is an automated platform for customers to chat with the customer staff. With this tool, the company can have live sales support assistance for the customers.

2. Zoho CRM

Zoho is a one-unfired platform providing the company with Omni channel interaction support, marketing tools for social media, analytics of customer feedback, and Chabot’s. 

3. Google Analytics

This analysis tool is excellent for keeping an eye on the sales conversion and what is a significant setback in your customer policy. In addition, it will give you a complete insight into what irritates your customer and how to take steps to deal with that.

Conclusion

In short, the primary aim of a customer retention strategy is to ensure your customers make multiple and repeated purchases. It happens when your customers are satisfied with your services and products.

Customer experience can impact your business’s performance and sales. With the right strategy, your customers will be happy and deliver long-term benefits to your brand. 

A customer-centric strategy will bring them back to you and boost your brand awareness and reach without any extra investment. So train your teams likewise and give your customers value-added services they will remember for a long time!

So, what strategies will you apply right after reading this guide?