How to Keep Your Clients Happy

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Ready to learn how to build a loyal client base full of repeat customers? Check out our Marketing Minute this week, which offers some real evidence that customer retention strategies work to build your bottom line, and which strategies work better than others.?

Working To Increase Customer Retention

Think about this: Depending on your industry, it costs 5 to 10 times more to acquire new clients than retain the ones you have currently, and those returning customers will spend 67% more on average than those who are new to you.?

This shouldn’t be a surprise. When you get a new customer or client, make them feel seen and heard. They just spent money with you (or have agreed to) so be sure that they don’t immediately regret that by engaging them. A great way to do that is automated touchpoints through personal email.??

Why Customer Retention Matters

Now that the whole world is more digitally-savvy than ever before, the idea of customer service and customer retention has evolved. Markets (and inboxes) are oversaturated, and it takes some serious strategy to stand out and convert.

It’s not just the cold hard cash it takes to bring on new clients, either. When your fan base is loyal and trusts your brand, they’re much more likely to offer feedback and reviews, try new products, and share their joy by word of mouth.

If you don’t yet know your customer retention rate as a key performance indicator (KPI) of the growth of your business, it’s easy to calculate for any given time frame. You’ll need to know the customers at the beginning of the time period (S), the number of customers at the end (E), and the number of new customers acquired during that time (N).

Here’s the formula: (E-N)?S ? 100 = retention rate

Customer Retention Strategies That Work

There’s no shortage of marketing and sales think-pieces and op-eds that offer up great (and not so great) customer retention strategies, but they all have one thing in common – trust. Whatever you decide to try, it should help your current customers understand why they can trust you to solve their pain points. Consider trying one (or all!) of these customer retention strategies.

Onboarding

Think about your “welcome” email campaigns – do you have one set up yet? Are they personalized for new clients? Do they feel personal? Or do they feel like a robot bullet points at them? Remember, people want to do business with other people. Especially when it comes to B2B marketing and sales.?

So your job as the business owner is to inject a personal touch in every touchpoint. You want them to trust you. You want them to know that you’re paying attention. The very best thing you can do on a “welcome” type email is to ask them a question to get them to reply. And then make it your business to reply back.?

This first email is the perfect time to give the best first impression and build trust that you appreciate your new customers’ business. Take a look at this example:

If it’s time to build an onboarding campaign or even finetune existing email marketing strategies you have, it may be time to automate your process. Connect 365 offers a completely different and more personal kind of email marketing. That’s why it’s great for prospecting and sales because your emails sent through Connect 365 literally look like a personal email from your grandma (and everyone opens those, right?).

Ongoing Support

No matter where your customers are on their journey, make sure you’re offering support and ongoing customer service to let them know you’re willing to earn their trust over time and support customer retention.?

This could look like how-to or client testimonials, informative blog posts about your product features, and engaging social media content that invites your followers to offer their feedback in an organic way.

Weekly or Bi-Weekly Touchpoints

Along with having real estate on your social media pages and websites, that type of content can also be shared in weekly “touching base” messages.?

Also don’t underestimate the power of sharing client milestones, good news about your partners or vendors, and any discounts or promotions you have available.?

If they are not reacting to your emails. Shoot them a text. A message on Facebook. An omnichannel approach to customer retention only helps to amplify your messages and reach new prospects on the digital channels where you may not traditionally reach them. Remember, these people spent money with you. Taking a few minutes to reach out can go a long way in keeping their trust.

Customer Surveys

It seems too simple to work, but the best way to know what keeps customers happy is by asking them. Create automated email surveys asking them about their experience as your client, what they would like to see you offer in the future, what kind of new challenges they’re facing – give them a chance to talk about their favorite subject (themselves.)?

Use the results of these surveys to find out where you could be improving what you’re offering and leverage the things you’re doing well to boost customer retention.

Creating Success With Customer Retention Strategies

The tools to help keep your customers happy could be right at your fingertips when you include Connect 365 in your customer retention strategy. Using automated, personalized emails, you can continue to build trust with your client base and keep them around longer.

Connect 365 is a client attraction and sales automation tool that offers a more personal, intimate experience to the recipient. It cuts through the noise of the modern email inbox and stands out in a sea of “marketing” and “advertising” emails that your prospects receive on a daily basis.

The result? More people will read your most important emails without you having to send each one manually.?

Need more clients to begin with? Download my LinkedIn Prospecting guide on how to turn LinkedIn contacts into leads, leads into sales opportunities, and sales opportunities into new clients.?

Download here.