When you think about your business and its future, you must think – who are your best customers? Undoubtedly, the answer points back up at the loyal ones. So, in order to succeed, you must find ways to attract returning customers. Don’t get the wrong idea; acquiring new ones is significant too. However, keeping loyal consumers close affects all your outcomes.
Why Are Returning Customers Important?
What is a returning customer? It’s someone who actively decides to cooperate with you on several occasions and promote your brand in the meanwhile. These individuals represent the foundation of your firm’s success. To put you in perspective, researchers have shown that those businesses that have high customer loyalty rates drive 50% more revenue. The main benefits of implementing an effective retention strategy include:
- Reduce costs
- More financial gains
- Enhanced brand awareness
- Easier acquisition strategy
- A more efficient sales funnel
- Long-term stability
Repeat business is essential for every retailer and each organization. The frequency of purchases and the duration of the collaboration determine the incomes and the customer-base. Happy, loyal, and satisfied users will come back and continue to buy your products or services. Moreover, they’re far more likely to recommend your brand to friends, peers, or clients.
How Do Businesses Keep Customers Coming Back?
There are multiple ways to attract returning customers. Consumers that buy from you repeatedly are your free promoters, among other things. Due to their tremendous importance, companies have been exploring the best ways to approach them and gain their trust and loyalty.
Here are some of the most efficient methods to interact with your purchasers and ensure long-term loyalty:
- Making customer service a top priority
- Renewing customer experience
- Featuring their testimonials in your campaigns
- Creating loyalty programs
- Being active on social media
- Asking for feedback and acknowledging its importance
- Making your business accessible
These seven tips to increase customer retention and CLV are easy to follow and can do wonders for your organization. Show appreciation and step out of your comfort zone every now and then. Innovation sits well with most consumers.
Excellent Customer Service
Making customer service your top priority represents a huge competitive advantage. If you only engage in sporadic efforts to refine it, you won’t get far. This field demands constant attention and continuous improvement. Once you define your target audiences, make sure to emphasize their satisfaction.
- Educate your employees and help them obtain the crucial skills; creating an employee handbook that outlines your principles, goals, and policies will help
- Time is of the essence; encourage your staff to take charge of decision-making. They must respond timely and accurately to visitors’ questions and requirements
- Monitor and measure the outcomes; stay updated and see which strategy works best for your team
Make the buying experience trouble-free and simple, and your consumers will quickly notice it. Their interest will rise, and their perception of your products and services will improve. Lastly, many of them will display their satisfaction publicly, which will generate more leads.
Customer Service Outsourcing
There are several reasons to outsource customer service. This practice saves time, cuts costs, simplifies hiring processes, and offers more flexibility. Your availability will rise, and you’d get more coverage. Additionally, you’d have a multi-channel and multi-language service. If you want to see the results fast, outsourcing is often the best choice.
Renewed Customer Experience
Versatility is the key. Gather your team and brainstorm – and do it often. Adding new products or services once in a while will not only attract returning customers but will help you entice new ones. If you can’t include something brand new into your offerings, you can always boost or refresh the existing items or services in some way.
In simple terms: If the product itself doesn’t change (for the better), focus on refining the experience that follows its purchase.
The Importance of Testimonials
Featuring loyal buyers’ testimonials in your social media campaigns, case studies, and newsletters helps in a few ways. Firstly, you’ll get some extra promotion. Your viewers and potential purchasers will be intrigued and encouraged to do business with you. Besides, your most loyal customers will take that as a form of appreciation. You’ve enlisted them as essential for your company and brand.
Loyalty Programs
If you’re a small business owner, this one might seem tricky. However, you have multiple choices at your disposal. Choose the one that matches your budget and your loyal purchasers’ preferences. Some companies build customized apps for their users. Others use electronic membership cards. Both of these alternatives allow you to gather valuable data and understand your customers’ needs and habits.
Other things they’ll enjoy and treasure can include a gift card, coupon, returning customer discount, and various other bonus points. Be creative when motivating your repeat customers.
Social Media Effectiveness
The importance of a strong social media presence is unquestionable. These days, around 5 billion people use mobile phones regularly. Almost 4 billion of them use social media daily. This number has doubled since 2015, and the estimations say that this trend will keep on prevailing in the years to come. The percentage of Americans who use these social apps is also on the rise, and the majority of US users are Gen Z and Millennials. Moreover, the USA is the sixth country in the world by the year-on-year increase in the usage of social media. With these facts and statistics, you can’t afford not to build a solid online presence.
How to Achieve Desired Results?
- Post quality content
- Reshare relevant posts
- Respond timely and be accessible
- Engage in the comment section (on your pages and other people’s and organizations’ posts)
- Use keywords
- Share knowledge and useful information
- Post high-quality photos and videos
Keep in mind – pushy sales messages won’t get you far. However, being out there and understanding your audience brings long-term success. If you’re having a hard time picking up on all social media tricks, consider outsourcing as your valid option.
Asking for Feedback
Don’t be afraid of criticism. Whichever your line of work is, there will always be someone who had (even a slightly) negative experience. The important thing is to learn from it and move past it. However, statistics can seem a bit worrying. Unsatisfied customers will most likely gossip about you with peers. And yet, less than 10% of them will come forward and state their dissatisfaction directly. Having these figures in mind, you must ask for feedback. The ugly truth is far less damaging than an echoing complaint you know nothing about.
Conducting Customer Surveys
Surveying your buyers is the most straightforward way to collect their insights and learn about their true needs. The questions should be simple and relevant. Your main concerns should be the best and the worst things they have noticed while buying from you. When creating a survey, make sure it’s not time-consuming, unclear, or repetitive.
Being Accessible
This one doesn’t require much explaining. Being at your buyers’ and potential customers’ disposal is essential. Still, we all know how difficult it might be to monitor all communication channels and provide people with the right and timely information. If you don’t have enough time to dedicate to this crucial matter, customer service outsourcing will undoubtedly help you. Hiring an external team or a BPO company to take care of your customer satisfaction is frequently the best choice.
Try Out These Simple Ways to Attract Returning Customers
The next time you find yourself asking – How do you encourage customers to return? – remember these seven simple steps and hacks. Aside from the financial benefits you’ll immediately feel, your business will prosper in more ways. Learn and start creating your strategies to reach the ultimate aim.
