By Gage Drake
It’s no secret that customer retention is more important than customer acquisition. While getting new customers may be easier, they are more likely to become dissatisfied and leave your business. On the other hand, loyal customers provide a consistent revenue stream, have lower churn rates, and tend to recommend your brand to others—all of which can help you grow your business over time.
But achieving this goal isn’t always easy. In this article, you’ll be walked through how each of these factors can affect your ability to hold on to customers—and what strategies companies should implement if they want their retention rates to improve.
You don’t understand what your customers’ needs are
You need to learn what your customers want, not just what they buy. You can do this by asking them. You may think that you know what your customers want from you, but if you’re wrong, it’s going to make a big difference when it comes to retaining customers.
When you started in business, the first step you probably took was trying to guess what your customers wanted and then figuring out how to give it to them. You likely learned that this approach didn’t work very well pretty quickly. It turns out that some of the things you thought were great ideas weren’t exactly popular with your target audience, and this is what customer retention is all about.
Your relationship isn’t going deep enough
Customer retention isn’t about just keeping a customer, it’s about deepening your relationship with them. A great relationship is based on trust, which requires you to be loyal and honest. This means that you need to be consistent in everything you do for your customers (be it product quality or service delivery), especially if they are long-term customers.
It also takes time for relationships to develop—the longer the customer has been with you and experienced your products or services, the more likely they are going to recommend that brand or shop there again.
Your product or service isn’t right for them
If your product or service is not right for a customer, they’ll leave. This can be a frustrating reality because it’s often difficult to see the disconnect between what you think you’re providing and what your customers need. It takes time and effort to understand your customers’ needs, which might feel like more of an investment than you’ve got time for. But if you don’t make that investment, then here’s what happens:
- Your unhappy customers will leave
- Your remaining customers will be unhappy with their experience
- Even if those remaining customers stay put, their loyalty won’t last forever
You haven’t been keeping up with the competition
You know how it is, you’re so busy running your business that you don’t have time to keep up with the competition. You just want to focus on delivering a quality product and providing great customer service, but then one day something happens and your competitor shows up with a new feature that’s taking over the market. They came up with this idea before you did—and now they’re getting all the customers who would have come to you if it had been available earlier.
Not keeping an eye on what your competitors are doing (and not doing) will put you at risk of missing out on opportunities to improve customer retention strategies that could make all the difference in retaining more customers or losing them altogether.
You’re not implementing the right strategies
You need to be implementing a strategy that works for your customers. Your strategy should be based on what your customers want and how they prefer to use your product or service. If you’re not certain what this is, then you may want to do some research and/or surveys before implementing anything else.
If you have implemented a strategy but it isn’t working out so well, then there might be an issue with how it was implemented. Or perhaps something else went wrong—such as problems with technology or equipment not functioning properly—and this caused delays in getting things done correctly. Regardless of what occurred, it’s important to have an understanding of what is going wrong so that you can better retain your customers in the future.
You’re not paying attention to feedback and reviews
If you’re not paying close attention to feedback and reviews, you might be missing out on some great opportunities. For example, if a customer mentions that they had an issue with one of your products or services and how you handled it, this could be evidence of a recurring problem that should be addressed. If someone mentions that they’re having trouble with their billing system and provides a solution for others who have the same issue in the future, you can use this information as part of a company-wide improvement initiative.
