Retain More Clients- Strategies to Strengthen Your Business
The easiest way to grow your business is to not lose your current clients. On an average, a business loses 19% of its clients annually by not being able to deliver customer relationships. For a lot of companies, meeting their clients’ demands is an arduous task. This is one of the major reasons for them to collaborate with PR agencies that help them build a positive image in the market fostering to client satisfaction.
According to a survey, acquiring new clients can cost you five or seven times more than simply retaining your current customers. The consequences of even a tiny change in customer retention can cascade businesses on long term profits and shall never be underestimated.
PR consultancies say a company capable of satisfying its existing clients bags higher referrals. In other words, the lifetime value of your existing clients is extended which is extremely crucial to a business’s growth. For example, if one company retains 90% of its clients, and the other retains 80% of it. Further, both add 25% of new customers per year, the first one gets 15% of net profit to its kitty, while the other one will have only 5%. Over few years, one would virtually double, and the other one might not have any real growth.
The key strategies one needs to keep in mind, according to PR agencies, to increase their client retention is as follows:
CUSTOMER SERVICE
Believe it or not, customer satisfaction comes with customer service. PR companies, which are actively engaged with online businesses’ brand positioning programmes, claim that customers while making a purchase demand 24*7 service support; hence setting up a strong client servicing team is mandatory. It’s important to pay attention to problem-solving skills and deadlines, also a good idea to add a personal touch to stand out amongst competitors.
ACKNOWLEDGE
It goes a long way in boosting relationships; PR companies labour the point about paying attention to minute details about the client when they choose you. A simple Thank You works wonder and is said to be integral for companies to acknowledge their customers for consistent business.
TREAT COMPLAINTS AS A GIFT
Most of your customers who are dissatisfied won’t complaint but just walk away and you would never get to know about it. May be they are too frightened, or can’t be bothered, or don’t believe it will make any difference. Whilst they might not tell you what’s wrong, they will tell plenty others. A system of complaints will surely be the lifeblood of the business. Treat them as gifts as they are still expecting you to delight them. The other opportunity to satisfy them and the manner you respond will help you retain maximum of your customers.
PROVIDE LOYALTY PERKS
Companies usually focus on giving incentives to new clients they want to get but completely forget or ignore to reward their existing clients. PR professionals suggest companies to offer incentives and special rewards to existing clients to boost client retention and repeated business. These loyalty programmes help companies retain their clients and keep them engaged and interested.
The client or customer retention is no doubt a tricky act and there are number of strategies to dwell onto. Customer retention is largely dependent on the services or products offered by the businesses. The above mentioned points are to give you a heads up on things that you should not forget about while dealing with your customers and will cost you nothing to implement.
Also Read:Five reasons to hire a PR Agency for your business