Customer Retention Tactics : 3 Doable Steps to Take Today

Communicating your value proposition to your target audience will be the area most associated with new customer acquisition.

The fundamental basis for starting any businesses enterprise typically is to establish a substantial need for a product or service and then fulfilling said need in a way that earns a profit.  Your ability to build and sustain any for-profit organization will be heavily dependent on maintaining a dynamic customer base.

You must have the infrastructure to be able to consistently acquire and retain customers at a fraction of your overall expense apparatus. The challenge of maintaining a healthy customer base is one that can be met with a two-pronged approach. Communicating your value proposition to your target audience will be the area most associated with new customer acquisition.  

The second challenge involves minimizing attrition. In other words; how do you keep your newly-acquired customers from leaving? How do you get them to continue to pay you for your services? 

Here are 3 things you can do to minimize customer attrition.

1. Support

This may seem painfully obvious, but one of the trends I have noticed in this new digital age is the lack of good old fashioned customer support. Most firms these days do not devote much resources to this area. Investing in the customer support area of your business will help you stand out and give your customers a reason to continue to do business with you and even pay a premium for what you have to offer. Offer a tiered support system, devoting a more dedicated staff to your high-dollar customers.

2. Know who is a good fit 

Let me go ahead and be the first to say out loud what you already know; Not everyone is a good fit for your product or service. There are some customers that you cannot please despite your best efforts. They have a need, yes but for one reason or the other are just not a good fit.

Carefully analyse the data you have on your longtime customers to find similarities between them. This will help you get a better understanding of who your ideal customer is. Use this information for better targeting. Education is key here. Provide ample educational material via videos, articles, etc. To help your prospective and current customers better understand your service. 

3. Talk to your customers

If all else fails, simply communicate with your customers to find out what features or improvements will make continued consumption of your products more feasible. If you do not deal with a large customer base, then you might want to set one day out of the week aside and hold short phone or in-person conversations with your core customer groups. Take note of all the changes they say they wish you could make.

Do this each month and work on implementing the practical changes that keep coming up in conversations across multiple customers.