It’s something you’ve heard before. Finding new clients is more expensive than getting current customers to make a repeat purchase. It’s true for a lot of firms, especially in the congested e-commerce space, where the cost of clicks and conversions seems to be rising all the time.

When was the last time you tried to re-engage clients in order to convince them to return? If you haven’t yet built a consistent customer retention plan, now is an excellent moment to start. Let’s have a look at the  best strategies for customer retention,

Client retention refers to a set of operations used by a company to enhance the number of repeat customers and the profitability of each existing customer.

In order to understand what are the best strategies for customer retention, we need to first take into account what exactly we mean by customer retention?

Customer retention strategies allow you to deliver and extract additional value from your current clientele. You want to make sure that the clients you fought so hard to attract stay with you, have a positive experience with your products, and continue to derive value from them.

In other words, acquisition builds a foundation of clients, whereas retention builds customer connections and maximises revenue for each one. The following are the six most important strategies:

1: Provide prompt assistance

Quickly respond to customer service inquiries. A timely response might be as simple as a short message confirming that you have received the customer’s question. Even better, give them an estimate of how long it will take to address their problem. If customers know you’re actively working on a solution, they’ll be more ready to wait. Setting expectations for time frames ahead of time can help with this.

2: Make encounters more personal

Customers become irritated when they must repeatedly explain an issue. Customers are more likely to depart if they have to deal with exhausting, recurrent interactions. Give customer service representatives the tools they need to quickly gather client data and elevate the discussion.

3: Invest in your workforce

Helping your agents can also benefit your customers. Simplify customer service workflows so that tickets are routed to the appropriate departments and agents. This makes the customer service process easier for agents and quicker for them. Create several support request forms and ticket fields that are conditional.

4: Meet customers at their place

Don’t limit your customer service options to just one or two. Use omnichannel support to provide clients with the freedom to choose their preferred channel. Customer retention is anticipated to improve as a result of omnichannel experiences. This is because you are reducing the amount of effort required to make a purchase or contact customer service.

5: Feedback from customers

Customer feedback is one of the most valuable tools you have to increase customer retention and reduce attrition rates. If you want to know what is and is not working for your customers, it helps to hear it straight from the horse’s mouth.

6: Loyalty incentivisation

Customer loyalty can be rewarded, which can help you retain more customers. Customers enjoy it when firms show their appreciation for them and give them reasons to return. Loyalty programmes, discount discounts, and special offers are all effective incentives. Customers will be encouraged to continue purchasing from your company as a result of these incentives.

We’ve already taken you through the road may on the best strategies for customer retention and considered what we should track to keep on target.

Now, let’s look at some concrete suggestions on how to build a customer retention strategy?

1: Take use of client accounts.

Accounts with customers can be a double-edged sword. Accounts, on the one hand, make repurchasing easier by providing customers with rapid access to prior orders as well as pre-filled shipping information. Customer accounts, on the other hand, are frequently perceived as too large a commitment for new consumers.

As a result, when given the option, many people choose to check out as a guest. So, how can you efficiently deploy and encourage customer accounts while ensuring that first-time client conversions are not hampered?

The trick is to provide people with the opportunity to establish an account once they’ve put forward the first order. You can send consumers direct invites to activate an account after they’ve finished a transaction if you’re using Shopify and your customer accounts are optional.

2: Enhance your customer service

Support systems enable you to engage successfully with your customers and give them the appropriate amount of assistance. A support system can assist you both before and after the sale by allowing you or a customer service representative to interact clearly with the consumer.

Having a live chat or help desk tool on hand can turn a client query into a sale or a customer complaint into a resolution, whether the consumer comes in person, via email, or through social media. Increasing client retention by utilising customer accounts

A skillfully addressed complaint or problem can frequently convert a dissatisfied customer into a loyal, repeat customer. That’s not to mention the importance of receiving client feedback, which can help you improve your items and your whole purchasing experience.

3: Give freebies

Sending a modest present to your top customers can be a terrific way to urge them to return while also adding the element of surprise, depending on your niche, while also giving a sense of surprise and joy, which can help boost consumer satisfaction. Giving an unexpected present also adheres to the law of reciprocity, which states that we are compelled to reciprocate positive actions with positive actions of our own.

4: Consumer loyalty programme

Customers are motivated to purchase more frequently in order to earn lucrative rewards, therefore loyalty programmes, also known as customer retention programmes, are an effective strategy to boost purchase frequency.

5: Send customers interesting emails

If purchase frequency is the foundation of customer retention, email marketing is the foundation of customer engagement and retention toolbox.

Emails allow you to maintain contact with your customers both before and after they make their first purchase. Each communication you deliver must add value to your customer’s experience. You run the danger of losing them if it doesn’t.

6: Make product recommendations

If you can’t upsell to customers and boost the average purchase value, all of your customer retention initiatives will fail. Every consumer will feel as if your shop was made particularly for them if you give thoughtful and relevant recommendations. Furthermore, conversions, order values, and customer loyalty will all improve.

You can propose products to your consumers based on their hobbies, gender, and previous purchases. Amazon.com, for example, performs an excellent job at recommending things to its online clients.

In this article, we have walked you through what is customer retention strategies in the most comprehensive way. However, the winning strategy is to improve the customer experience through proactive customer communication.

Create a communication schedule to keep track of customer interactions, communicate at regular intervals, and identify upsell and cross-sell opportunities.

Make sure your communication calendar contains a time frame for talking about events, birthday greetings, “thank yous,” special offers, follow-ups, and hand-written cards or notes, among other things. All main interaction points in the pre-sales, sales and post-sales processes must be included.