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According to reports, an average business loses around 20 percent of customers annually because of failing customer relationships. Imagine how one company can lose so much by losing that percentage of its clients every year. For some, it could get even worse by not having benchmark hospitality measures in place. However, there are things you can do to retain your existing customers and prevent them from walking away.
Do Some Analysis On Customer Trends
First off, you must know who your customers are and where they are coming from. You can select a time period for this to get a better picture of your customers’ statistics. Through this, you can also know what their most common purchases are and how much they spend for those.
The earlier you can analyze the customer trend patterns, the faster you can adjust to their needs. Note that market trends can also be influential in your business. Thus, you must see this up close and think of what you can do to provide.
Know What Customers Are Complaining About
You should definitely make an effort to know what these people are complaining about if you are losing customers. After all, how can you fix a problem if you do not know what the problem is? This has an impact on your profit vs revenue, after all. The best way to do this is to record customer calls. There are services that will allow you to mine through customer call recordings to look for patterns based on keywords or other parameters you set. This is the best way to identify why customers are leaving your business so that you can fix the problems causing their departure. If your business is losing customers, consider looking into call recording services.
Reach Out To Your Long-Time Customers
You would want to keep a close personal relationship with your long-time customers, so you don’t stay out of their radar. You can either reach out to them by telemarketing services at certain periods of time. These should be done by a real representative of the company who can also gather important feedback. Give them updates of what they could buy from you, tell them of any new offers they might be interested in, or simply ask for their feedback about their recent purchase. This is your chance to learn from their comments and help you weed out unnecessary things in your business.
Frequent communication with your customers is very crucial as well. Even just the simple gesture of saying ‘thank you,’ giving follow-ups, special offers, and any notes with some personal touch can keep these customers because they feel valued.
Excellent Customer Service
What better way for you to have an influx of repeat and new customers than an excellent customer service? If you provide your current customers the satisfaction that they deserve, then words will come out and spread like you’d never imagined.
Diego Orjuela, CEO of Cables and Sensors, shares how they stood out among the rest. “Dealers tell us we’re different, we ship faster and answer questions quickly, and our product is superior. One customer told us he was scoring each supplier and we stood out. We proved to them what we are capable of,” he said in his interview with Inc. Magazine.
The key to an excellent customer service is delivering more than what your customers expect from you, even if it means going beyond your call of duty.
Accept Complaints
Most of the dissatisfied customers do not complain, but they will simply walk out and tell others instead. Accepting complaints is a gift to your business because that just means your customers are trying to help you get better. These customers are also most likely to help with marketing surveys to improve the company. Most of the time, though, these people just don’t know how or where they could tell their complaints to. You best hope they don’t tattle angrily about it on social media.
Show your clients that you are open to customer complaints or suggestions in order to serve them better. This way, you can still correct their impressions of you and provide them with great satisfaction.
Image from https://nicholashopp.com/5-reasons-you-are-losing-customers-on-your-website/
Accepting complaints politely is a great way to keep customers around. I have had several occasion where a customer would have left if I had not been willing to politely work through the issue with them. Sometimes a listening hear can be your greatest asset.