Set expectations early to avoid uncertainty, focus on lifetime customer value over single transactions, use communication calendars and personal touches to build relationships, go above and beyond by addressing issues proactively, and leverage automation to better meet commitments while minimizing downtime. Complaints should be viewed as opportunities to improve satisfaction, and anticipatory service that eliminates problems proactively further enhances loyalty. Gathering customer feedback through surveys allows understanding expectations and catching issues before clients choose to leave.

1. Customer Retention Strategy
Abhishek Kumar

2. Set customer expectations

3. The first step to building better
customer retention is to set client
expectations early. The earlier the
better. Don’t wait.

4. ● By setting expectations early and a tad lower than
you can provide, you can eliminate uncertainty as to
the level of service you need to offer to ensure your
clients are happy. This clear vision enables your
company to build KPIs around specific expectations
and ensure you are always over delivering.
● Clients tend to remember negative experiences. So
if you have over delivered on the past 20 occasions,
but, once, you undelivered – your client will no doubt
quote that negative experience as a reason to cancel
his or her contract with you.

5. Redefine how you measure customer value

6. Customer acquisition is easy to measure. How much they spend in
their first purchase vs. how much it cost to acquire them equals
your ROI. It’s simple. This is why many marketing campaigns focus
on acquiring customers at all costs, think discounts and other
tactics that might eat away profits. However, consumers are
getting smarter and discounts alone are not enough to drive sales.

7. Because of the ubiquity of competitive pricing, customers now
place more importance on value than just finding the lowest
price. Marketers should be doing the same when it comes to
their customers. Measuring the customer lifetime value (CLV) of
each customer will give you a view of the potential net profit
from each person during the amount of time they are engaged
with your brand. This is a better way to measure your customers
as it focuses on lifetime value instead of the one-off profit from
one acquisition.

8. Frequent Communications Calendar

9. Avoid losing your customers by building relationships
and keeping in touch using a rolling calendar of
communications. This is a programmed sequence of
letters, events, phone calls, “thank you’’, special
offers, follow-ups, magic moments, and cards or
notes with a personal touch etc. that occur
constantly and automatically at defined points in the
pre-sales, sales and post-sales process. People not
only respond to this positively, they really appreciate
it because they feel valued and important.

10. Go above and beyond

11. Oftentimes, companies overlook how
important this is. Going the extra mile for
your customers is an easy way to build
strong relationships. As a service business,
you have countless opportunities to woo
your clients and transcend the minimum.

12. Here are a couple of ways you can go
that extra mile for your clients:
Pay attention to what your customers want and make their
issues your issues – be proactive in addressing them.
Isolate potential issues and fix them before they become
problems.

13. Make use of
automation

14. Automation tools allow for time-consuming tasks requiring
manual intervention to be standardized into repeatable
processes. Companies that leverage automation are able to
minimize downtime and keep clients’ networks performing
at their best.

15. Companies are typically
bound by contracts that
guarantee their services and
make them accountable to
clients. By leveraging
automation tools and
streamlining repeatable
processes, companies can
better meet their
commitments.

16. A complaint is a gift

17. 96 percent of dissatisfied customers don’t complain.
They just walk away. That’s because they often don’t
know how to complain, or can’t be bothered, or are too
frightened, or don’t believe it’ll make any difference.

19. Customers who complain are giving you a gift, they’re
still talking to you, they’re giving you another
opportunity to return them to a state of satisfaction
and delight them and the manner in which you respond
gives you another chance to show what you’re made of
and create even greater customer loyalty.

21. Implement anticipatory service
Anticipatory service is a proactive approach to
customer service. Instead of waiting for problems to
occur, a company that implements anticipatory
service can eliminate problems before they happen.
To achieve and maintain this harmony, today’s companies
must establish a dialogue with customers that shows an
awareness of their information needs and respect for
their communication preferences.

23. Customer churn can be avoided by simply listening to
your customers. Customer feedback surveys are
invaluable for learning how your service is
performing in relation to your clients’ expectations.

24. This feedback will help you retain clients. By
understanding client feedback, you can take action
before it’s too late and make business decisions based
on real data-driven feedback.