One of the most difficult things businesses have to deal with is customer retention or churn.
There are so many reasons customers disappear. Right now, many businesses are struggling with how to re-engage with customers that haven’t been buying. There are lots of reasons that happens, but how do you know what is the REAL reason? Now more than ever, it is important to know why your customers aren’t coming back.
What are the key reasons they have “moved on”?
You won’t know that unless you reach out and ask for honest feedback. It can be as easy as a simple, automated survey that asks no more than 5 questions. That will inform so many parts of your business. Is it the product or service offering? Is it your price point? Or some other issue that you aren’t even aware of? You probably have a good hunch about some of the reasons customers disappear based on other data points. But here is the GOOD news. Digital marketing is a great way to stay in touch with – and build – your customer base. An online survey is a great place to start, and conveys that you really want to have a conversation with your customers.
Then the real work starts. Make sure that you have a follow up program in place.
- Keep the conversation going in a personal way. That may mean starting to use social channels you aren’t used to, not just email. (Personal confession: To be honest, I have 5 different email accounts that I use for different things, and I suck at checking all of them all the time. But I am on my social channels multiple times a day. So sometimes you need to think outside the box for communicating with customers like me.)
- Make adjustments when you see patterns emerge from the survey results. You may be able to make one-off adjustments based on feedback, but look for the patterns. That makes it easier to address things that will reduce churn in a systematic way.
- Let your customers know what you’ve done based on their feedback. At the end of the day, we all want to feel like we have been heard. Create a special offer to woo them back and wow them.
- Create a special offer to woo them back and wow them.
- If you don’t have it yet, you need a Customer Management System (CRM) that you use to keep track of customer contacts, customer details, personal little things that come out in your conversations with your customers. And go ALL IN on tracking the little details. There are two companies I have been a client of for (um) more years than I will admit to. I do it because every time I email, text, or talk with them, they ask about little things that are personal.
Regardless of what your specific challenges are, we are here to help.
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