This is the second post in a-2 part series. Click here for part 1.
Customer churn can deal an overwhelming blow to your business. The phenomenon of losing loyal customers can take a heavy toll not only on your finances but on your employees’ morale as well. Keeping loyal customers deals with tremendous benefits for your company, as it is more cost-effective than winning new customers, provides free and valuable word-of-mouth marketing, gives you more freedom to innovate, and makes your employees healthier and happier.
There could be several heartbreaking reasons why customers choose to leave. Customers have expectations (some high, some low) and somehow, your product may not have met them. Your marketing strategy may not be engaging enough, and there might be a need for you to pump it up a bit to make your presence known. There might be a lack of understanding on the part of your product and you may need to educate your customers a bit more about it. Oftentimes, your competitors may just be better than you. However, the number one reason why a customer could stop doing business with you is due to poor customer service.
Here are some sure-fire tips on how to reduce customer churn stats and how to keep them down for a long time.
Metrics: Use it! Metrics are important in helping you determine how you interact with your customers. Without measurement, your company will have no way to know if you are doing well or not. Not all metrics are useful, however. Though you may have reasons to measure average handling time, it eventually does not tell you much about how satisfied your customers are. The two best-known metrics everyone should be measuring are customer satisfaction and net promoter scores. Be wary about spikes and dips: carefully determine and figure out where you want to be on that scale and work on achieving your goals.
Get the right feedback . Getting the right feedback may be the single most important thing your company can do to know if you are on the right track or not. Knowing what your customer thinks about your product and service is essential in influencing your decision-making and how you make changes and innovations to your product. Asking the right questions is important in determining what your customer think, so make sure that you have your customer surveys all planned out. Make your precious time count with customers over the phone.
Go the extra mile . Before any customer call ends, train your customer service representatives on how to do more than what customers expect them to do, try a little harder, and go above the norm. Have them engage in hearty small talk or offer the customer some service that you know they will need. Finding unique and astonishing ways to go the extra mile will not only turn passive customers into excited and convinced ones, but they will surely turn into loyal customers that tell others how great your company is. Keeping this up will keep your customers loyal to the fullest.
Communicate familiarity . How your customer support talks to your customers are the key to keeping them loyal. Always give the impression that whoever they talk to within your company, there will be a certain familiarity with them. Make customers feel that they are not just a number, but an integral part of it. Centralize and juice up your customer support tools and ensure everyone has access to it. Open your channels and make your business available to everyone. Having omnichannel -capable customer support will allow you to continue a customer conversation or transaction without having to start from square one.
Stay Competitive. Being competitive does not always mean giving better service than the competition and always winning as in the movies. In the real world, winning AND losing are truths, and you will experience both. In a product battle, just make sure that you give your competitors a fight they will not forget, and make it unforgettable and legendary. Ending up in first place is a bonus, but even if you do end up in second, your loyal customers will never forget what you did. Just as long as you make them realize that the struggle towards the top is all for their benefit.
Reducing customer churn is the pinnacle of diminishing customer attrition. Keeping old customers is still the best way to keep your business viable, valuable, and competitive for a long time. Of course, winning new customers will still be on your books, but never forget the ones who stuck with you for the longest. Keeping customers loyal may be a weight that VXI can help you with! Get in touch with us so that we can help you with customer retention.
