Picking the right customer retention strategy depends completely on the nature of your business. The following four strategies have proven to be quite useful in a number of different industries and can be tailored to online or off-line business sectors.
Customer service is always going to be key. Good customer service results in better customer satisfaction and increased product loyalty. The key to getting this right is to training up your front-line staff properly from day one and making sure there is a consistent service experience. In particular, response levels to customer complaints should be made as rapidly as possible in order to ensure customers feel their complaints and concerns are being dealt with properly.
Next, consider any touch points with your customers. You want to identify where customers are communicating with you regarding their complaints, issues and problems with your products. This can include a variety of communication channels including questionnaires, market research, blogs, twitter, Facebook, etc. This information needs to be centrally collated and then analyzed for trends or high level product issues. Tailor your customer retention strategy to suit the issue (e.g. using special offers may rapidly avert issues around your pricing point).
You also have to reassess how you are using your business intelligence systems. The usual approach is to use CRM systems for storing customer data. However, not all companies analyze this data as part of their customer retention strategy. CRM can be used to identify suitable customers for loyalty programs, a variety of special offers, follow-up e-mails and thank-you notes.
Finally, don’t forget that simply by reselling to an existing customer on an ongoing basis you improve their level of loyalty. This customer retention strategy is based on the fact that the ongoing sales establish a bond and relationship between customer and company. They are then less likely to switch brands/products so easily.