The importance
of keeping a customer for life is widely accepted and attempted, but many businesses miss the top, significant tactics to do so.
Of course the obvious factor of having a lifelong customer is the extended profit your business can make. Consider losing the customer, and you will not only lose their profit, but their referrals. Referrals is one of the most beneficial (and free) tactics a business can make a profit. Word-of-mouth can do wonders (or worlds of damage), and below are ways to discover what your target audience thinks of you and how your day-to-day business dynamic can help your business prosper. .
According to a survey conducted several years ago by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, one of the primary reasons a customer leaves its current supplier is simply because of a perceived attitude of indifference. This problem can be easily remedied by identifying customer moments of truth and improving on those customer experiences. A moment of truth is an instance when a customer comes in contact with a company. One example is when a customer service representative or a receptionist receives a call from a customer. By simply optimizing the customer experience, a customer is more likely to continue doing business with a supplier.
Another way to extend customer life is to seek customer feedback through surveys. By asking customers to provide feedback on their experience with a company, the customer will know that a company cares about the level of service provided. In addition, the feedback provided can be used to optimize a customer’s experience with the company.
To keep customers for life, the concept of customer lifetime value must be incorporated into a company’s culture. One person in an organization should be assigned the responsibility to track and optimize customer retention. He should also lead a task force to meet regularly, review retention performance and seek other ways to improve retention statistics. An educational effort should be launched to educate employees about the importance of customer retention. Retention statistics and customer loss statistics should be posted regularly.
A customer reclamation effort should be launched. Each time a customer becomes inactive for a defined period, someone in the company should communicate with the customer, find out why they became inactive and provide an incentive for the customer to begin doing business with the company again.
What’s the lifetime value of your customers? How can increasing lifetime value impact your company? What steps can you take to retain your customers for life? Decide today to make retention an integral part of your company, and let Thinker do the rest.
Jason Todd