How many times have you seen ads for a company that you’re a customer of, incentivizing new customers with great offers that you would love to take advantage of? While this form of marketing isn’t entirely wrong, companies that focus solely on attracting and obtaining new customers tend to forget about the importance and financial impact of their existing customers. To prove a point, research has shown that increasing retention rates by as little as 5% can increase profits by as much as 25% to 95% (Source: HBR). In this article, we’re going to talk about different strategies you can utilize to generate repeat business from past customers.
Three Approaches to Getting Repeat Business
When it comes to customer retention and repeat business, there are three main approaches that all of the strategies fall under: follow-up, support, and value.
1. It’s All in the Follow-Up
Just because a customer makes a purchase doesn’t mean the sale is over. In fact, some say that the real customer journey is just beginning since the goal is to get them to become a repeat buyer. The way you follow up with customers will have an enormous amount of influence on their future decisions with your brand.
2. Continuous Support for Services
If your company offers services, it’s important to incorporate continuous support that aims to ensure the customer experience is always a positive one. Bad experiences are never far away, so it’s your job to keep them satisfied long after the purchase so you can foster repeat business opportunities down the road.
3. Creating Value in Products
Unlike services, your contact points with customers will be few and far between, meaning your brand has to do more on the value side of things to make a difference in their mind. You need to find ways to create an abundance of value in your products so that your company stands out and customers will keep coming back for more.
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Follow-Up Customer Retention Strategies
Think back over your last few purchases from different brands. How many of them followed up with you in one way or another after the purchase? The simple act of letting customers know you haven’t forgotten about them is a powerful way to generate repeat business. Below, we’ve covered some strategies that take advantage of this.
1. Remind Customers What You Do For Them
While this strategy applies more to a company that offers services over products, anyone can use it. Whether it’s a service that requires a lot of “behind the scenes” work from your team or one that comes loaded with dozens of features most customers never even explore, let them know, in a humble way, all of the ways you’re working to maximize the benefits they receive. When you fail to mention this information, it’s easily forgotten about by the customer and less likely to influence their decision when it comes time to purchase again.
2. Send Frequent and Personalized Correspondence
Customers like when you follow up with them after a sale so they don’t feel like they just fed their money into some faceless corporation that could now care less about them. Whether done over email or with a quick phone call, touching base with your customers in a more personal way can work wonders when it comes time to re-up. This helps to show them that you care so your brand stays at the forefront of their thoughts when they’re ready to buy again.
Service-Based Customer Retention Strategies
While services create more opportunity for you to interact with customers, they also increase the likelihood that they may have a bad experience. Offering comprehensive, customer-satisfaction-based support that continues long after the purchase is a great way to generate repeat business. See the two strategies we’ve covered below.
1. Provide Top Notch Customer Service
In today’s consumer market, customer service is being weighed much more heavily than it used to. Customers want to work with companies they know they can rely on for support once they’ve purchased a service. To do this, make it well-known that your company is prepared to go above and beyond for customers, always just a phone call away and ready to help resolve any problem quickly to ensure total satisfaction. When you keep customers more than happy by literally giving them nothing to complain about, they’ll have no reason to look elsewhere.
2. Offer An Unexpected Surprise
There are few things that can please a customer more than an unexpected bonus. Even if they’re okay with the price they paid and more than happy with the continued customer support, when you give them any kind of extra gift, you’re immediately creating a strong bond that won’t soon be forgotten. Since they’re not expecting it, the bonus doesn’t have to be anything pricey or extravagant, but a small gesture that demonstrates how much you appreciate their business.
Product-Based Customer Retention Strategies
Everyone buys products, but it’s the value brands create that consumers really care about. Think about any product you exclusively purchase from one company and consider the value they’ve created to earn your loyalty time and time again. Below we’ve covered a few powerful repeat business strategies that will keep customers coming back for more.
1. Fast Shipping & Quality Packaging
When you sell a product that the margins are already pretty tight on, one of the best ways to create instant satisfaction in customers is by getting their purchase to them quickly. Taking it one step further, when you use personalized or branded packaging that looks and feels far better than your run-of-the-mill brown box, it’s going to stand out and inspire a connection with your brand that will ultimately influence their decision later on.
2. Create a Rewards Program
This tried and true method of customer retention still reigns supreme as one of the most powerful motivating factors for shoppers. With the freedom to make a rewards program as basic or complex as you want, offering “milestone” rewards to customers as they continue to make purchases from your brand is a surefire way to create loyalty while adding a fair amount of value at the same time. This is also great for controlling cost if you’re in a highly competitive niche and don’t have much room for direct spending.
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