Customer churn is a term often used to describe the rate at which a business loses its customers after a certain period. Customer churn can be caused by many things, from loss of interest, monetary issues to a bad or unsatisfactory experience with a business. Fortunately, most of these things can be helped and prevented with just the right customer retention strategies. Whether you’re a technology, arts, or media startup, you can benefit from having a strategy to combat customer churn.
Reward Customer Loyalty
You want your customers to stay, so give them a reason. Reward your customer’s loyalty by offering exclusive deals, discounts, and other rewards for returning to your business. It not only gives them a reason to keep coming back, but it improves their view of your business and might even convince them to recommend it to others. Customers like to feel appreciated and want to feel like their continued patronage of your business means something to you.
The right incentives at the right time can significantly lower your chances of customer churn. If you notice that a customer has been spending less time using your product or service or is nearing the end of their subscription, giving them the incentive to keep using it can help to ensure that they renew that subscription. Giving them discounts on products in their cart or a well-timed sale are just some ways you can get their loyalty.
Be Open to Reviews and Feedback
Your first duty as a business owner is to your customers. You should be open to receiving any reviews or feedback they might have of your business. By receiving feedback, you’ll be able to gauge what your customers really think of your service and find areas where you can improve. It’s also helpful to provide a page for customer reviews that the customers themselves can read and access. This builds trust among your customers and helps to compile all feedback into one place.
But more than just hearing them, you have to listen to what they’re actually saying and work on it. It’s all well and good to acknowledge your failures. However, if you don’t do anything about them, they might as well have not been said at all. As to how this can reduce customer churn, customers trust a business that’s open to feedback and actually works to improve on them. No matter how many negative reviews a business or product gets, if the establishment shows improvement and reviews gradually start getting more positive, customers are more likely to return to it. It’s good to form a healthy relationship with feedback and be receptive to it, as long as it’s constructive.
Give Good Customer Service
But working to improve past mistakes can only take you so far. It’s much better to work towards avoiding these mistakes in the first place. While it’s essential to keep an open mind and respond to criticisms with a willingness to change or adjust, it is much better to prevent the criticism from even happening. And all of this can be done with some good old customer service. In fact, customer service is probably the ultimate way to keep a customer from completely giving up on your business.
If a customer experiences good service and treatment in your business, it significantly affects their perception and practically guarantees that they keep coming back. Not to mention the possibility of them becoming brand ambassadors and recommending your business to others based on customer service alone. Don’t underestimate the power of word of mouth. It’s just as essential a marketing tool as any other.
Good customer service always starts with friendliness and politeness. As much as possible, you want your customers to feel welcome and like they’re in good hands. If you run an online business, keep your messages nice and friendly and respond to any customer queries at least within the day. Don’t keep your customers waiting too long, which also goes for customers in a physical shop. And as always, even just a smile goes a long way.
Redefine Your Marketing or PR Strategy
If you’ve tried everything and your customers still keep dropping like flies, maybe it’s time to change your whole trajectory. Perhaps your current marketing strategy isn’t working out so great for your target audience, or maybe your PR representative has made some slip-ups here and there that cost you a lot. It may seem like a hassle, but in times like that, it might be time to go back to the drawing board and create a new marketing or PR strategy.
Marketing and PR might seem similar, but they’re entirely different. Marketing is advertising your product for a specific audience to convince customers to buy it, while PR is building customer trust in your business to ensure that customers stay. Nevertheless, both are essential to keep a business afloat.
You can try a new marketing strategy, such as social media, email, or even influencer marketing if you haven’t already. Or you can strengthen your current one with new initiatives and new content. In addition, you can consult a leading public relations agency for startups to get the most out of your money or reconsider your angle or stance when making press releases. Either way, if you notice a problem with your current strategies, or they’re just not working as well as you thought they would, then it might be time to try something else.
Final Thoughts
Preventing or reducing customer churn is all about giving your customers what they want. What do your customers value? What do your customers look for in a business like yours? What can you do to make sure that they find what they’re looking for in your business? Ask yourself these questions and follow the four tips above, and you’ll be one step closer to finding the answer to customer churn.
