Want to create brand enthusiasts whose loyalty ultimately boosts your ROI? You’ve probably got the team in place to do just that: your customer support agents.

Consumers are often heavily invested in their interests and the communities that grow around those passions. If you want your business to resonate with that audience, your customer interactions need a personal touch. Creating this connection will increase the likelihood of their repeat business.

Making the Case for Customer Retention

Customer retention is determined by two elements: How many new customers your company acquires, and how successfully you satisfy existing customers. Retaining customers is vital, for two main reasons:

It saves you money. New business is exhilarating, and the allure of attracting new customers is undeniable. But it’s cheaper and simpler to retain existing customers than to set out to acquire new ones. Hubspot reports that it’s six to seven times more expensive to acquire a new customer than it is to retain an existing customer, and a 5% increase in customer retention can increase company revenue by 25–95%. And a Bain & Company report states that repeat clients buy more frequently and spend more on your brand than new customers do.

It creates a community. You should strive to establish a sense of welcome and belonging among your customer base. If your business caters to a specific market, this becomes significantly easier — and more important for your brand. Your company can enjoy the privilege of being everything to someone, unlike broad-appeal businesses that provide one thing to someone. You’ll have the opportunity to serve and inspire a dedicated group of underrepresented or underserved customers. These customers have specific needs that require a more strategic approach to engagement, one that’s about relationship management.

Strategies for Customer Retention

After a business’ initial customer flow wanes, it’s even more vital to invest your resources in customer retention. This is where your support team plays a critical role. Here’s how they can play their part.

Create a plan for retaining customers. By retaining customers, you build a relationship that needs constant direction. You should always have a plan to bring your customers along and solve more problems that they face. An innovative company with constant updates can keep its customers more engaged than a company that doesn’t grow. Set guidelines and policies for how you want your support team engaging customers and solving problems.

Manage expectations. Engagement aims to boost retention. This is a gradual process of building trust in the brand. While it might be easy to use big promises to get customers on your side, failure to meet set goals may undermine the work you’ve done to build customer loyalty in your brand.

Communicate with clients regularly. Volunteer to be the source of information that your clients rely on to navigate the industry. Send them information on the latest products in the space or about related events — or organize happenings of your own to better foster those relationships. If possible, send a tailored or personalized communication, which will resonate more with the customer than a simple mass message. Be sure to schedule your communications with care; sending too much email can offer an air of spamminess — or worse, desperation.

Request feedback and act on it. Customers need to be heard. They want to see genuine effort from a company that’s trying to build relationships. Take the feedback, whether negative or positive, and follow through. Update your products or services based on user needs, not your own preferences. Use customer feedback as a tool to track trends, customer pain points, and new opportunities.

Celebrate your milestones together. Reinforce the positive. Whenever the company makes progress or wants to celebrate a milestone, consider offering free gifts or discounts to your customers. This will greatly influence their image of you and nurture their loyalty.

Customer retention has a tremendous impact on your ROI. But engagement doesn’t have to be difficult. Connect with your customers at a personal level. Once you’ve successfully determined what works for your audience, you’ll be primed to make the maximum impact and keep your customer base strong.

Want to learn more about ModSquad’s customer support offerings? Give us a call today.

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