You may be wondering why customers or clients are moving away from you in search of your competitors or other substitute products.In fact, according to Bain and Company, it will cost a company 6-7 times more to find a customer than retaining an existing one. A mere 5% increase in customer retention can increase a company’s profitability by 75%. Below, we discuss five proven ways to ensure that your customers always come back,or even bring in more customers.

1. Have Loyalty Programs In Place

While your true customers will do business with you, whether they are rewarded or not, most times customers who are rewarded may go the extra length of doing the real marketing on your behalf. In fact, a 2016 survey done by Facebook found that 77 percent of people say they repeatedly buy from their favorite brands. 40 percent tend to be repeat buyers but would choose another brand that offered a better experience. 37 percent, meanwhile, say they make purchase decisions rooted in their emotions. 

The Case of Dollar Shave Club:

The American Dollar Shave Club’s example is one of cultivating loyalty. The company has built a base of more than 3 million repeat customers in five years by ensuring its members feel like they are valued. After you sign up as a Dollar Shave Club member, you receive a welcome email that explains how to make the most of the service. 

Clothing and shoe ecommerce site Zappos is also well-known for its excellent customer service — including its efforts to show customers how much they care by saying thank you and sending gifts.

Zappos also has an office-wide tally of how many gifts and surprises have been sent to customers during the previous month to make sure the whole team is doing their part to show customers how much they are appreciated.

Referral programs like those in use at Stitch Fix, reward users who refer their friends to the business. These users earn discounts, products, or credits if successful sales are made based on their referral.

In a recent survey, when asked what would make them more satisfied with their purchase, 61 percent of consumers said “a simple thank you.”

Also See: Five Ways Investor Pitch Efforts Are Not Successful For Startups

2. Have A Culture of Excellent Customer Service

Businesses planned for service are apt to succeed. Businesses planned for profit are apt to fail, wrote Nicholas Murray Butler. The market is full of competitors who can offer the same products or services as you do. Customer service is therefore the big difference that sets the players apart. Customers are willing to come back a hundred times to brands that prove to be loyal to them.

Amazon.com as a Case Study:

Amazon.com is an example that customer experience is not only a physical thing alone, but could also be extended to online user experience. Customer experience begins from the website. Describing the customer experience of online market, Executive Editor Rick Ayre said: 

“If you spend a lot of time on the site, I hope you get a sense of the independent, literate voice. And that behind it all, you’re interacting with people, and it’s people who care about you and not people who are trying to sell you these things.”

To stress the importance of excellent customer service, Jeff Bezos took a flight to Boston in 1999, stopping at a construction site, to personally present a set of golf clubs to a construction worker, who the company claimed was the 10-millionth customer.

3. Track and Personalize Each Customer Experience

Tracking and personalizing each customer experience helps you to maintain long-lasting relationships with all your customers.

Businesses now use Customer Relations Management (CRM) tools to make this happen. The software can help you to track every interaction you have with every client. These tools show you every message a customer has sent to you when you view their profiles. CRM software makes it easier for you to see your customer as a person and not just a number.

Lidiane Mocko,a small business CRM coach, advises that:

“If you have a CRM system that supports automation, then you can configure an automated sequence that sends them a request, followed by reminders.”

The effects of personalization can be seen in this research by Econsultancy in which it found that personalization based on purchase history, user preferences and other relevant information typically found in CRM software delivers a high Return On Investment.

4. Send Engaging Emails Or Newsletters to Your Customers

If the number of time a customer makes purchases determines the level of customer retention, then email marketing determines the level of customer engagement and retention.

Emails present an opportunity to build more on the relationship with your customers, especially before and after their initial purchases. Email messaging is so critical that every sent message adds value to your customer’s experience.

The Case of Shopify:

Shopify data from Black Friday Cyber Monday indicated that, compared with other sources, email has the highest conversion rate at 4.29%, followed by search in second. It is clear therefore that email is a channel that converts customers to the company. 

According to Shopify, one effective strategy is to use follow-up emails.

“ A week after a customer’s first purchase, send them an email that acknowledges and thanks them for buying from. This type of acknowledgement helps customers feel good about their decision to buy from you, and makes your brand more approachable.

You can make this initial email even more impactful by recommending products that complement their initial purchase. Finally, you can even start including customer reviews as well. These endorsements will increase both the value of each recommended product and the customer’s desire to buy.”

5. Widen The Gap Between You and Your Competitors.

This looks like the safest way to retain customers, because in the first place, there is not much competition, and customers have smaller range of products or services to choose from.

The Case of Apple:

If you want your customers to see you as the obvious choice over your competitors, then widen the competition gap so much that the customers would have to take notice of Apple’s strategy, demonstrated by their “Mac vs. PC” ad campaign.

The campaign starring John Hodgman as the inept PC and Justin Long as the cool, collected Mac saw the two humorously quipping over what made the Mac a better choice than a PC in a really entertaining manner.

The “Mac vs. PC” campaign was very tongue-in-cheek — and it generated a lot of dispute. Not only that, it divided the market and set Apple apart from their competitors by identifying the kind of consumers who should buy Apple products.

Bottom Line:

Finding the right marketing strategy is something you may have to give a serious thought because without it, the business is as good as not existing at all.

Charles Rapulu Udoh

Charles Rapulu Udoh a Lagos-based Lawyer with special focus on Business Law, Intellectual Property Rights, Entertainment and Technology Law. He is also an award-winning writer. Working for notable organisations so far has exposed him to some of industry best practices in business, finance strategies, law, dispute resolution and data analytics both in Nigeria and across the world.