Running a successful company takes a lot of work, energy, and time. From day 0, when our business might just be a lightbulb in our mind to a business small or large, or to this very day that we research how to increase customer retention. It is a constant process of improvement, adaptation, change, learning and relearning, with the sole purpose of maintaining, at least, a decent level of customers.
Most companies do this by dedicating a lot of resources and time to increasing awareness and lead generation, while not focusing on customer retention. We know that retaining a returning customer is way more affordable than acquiring new customers. So, why aren’t more companies focusing on customer retention? Is it because it needs extra work to be creative and differentiate your company from the overall competition? Is it less clear how to execute? Or are customer retention strategies just not the focus of management enough of the time versus a typical “marketing campaign”? Let’s explore some ways to increase customer retention in your business.
Customer retention is the process of engaging customers that have already, at least once, made business with your company by buying one of your products/services, and you wish to form mutually-beneficial, long-lasting relationships.
Customer retention is becoming more difficult, as companies create more detail-oriented and personalized strategies to increase their leads and customers. As such, after someone buys a product from you, it doesn’t mean that they’ll remain loyal.
You have to create a strategy for customer retention. One of the main tools that you should use is social media. Social media can be very efficient and helpful if used correctly. Here are 7 ways that social media can be leveraged to increase customer retention.
1) Easy To Be Found
Social media make it easy for your customers to come in touch with you, research about your services, and contact you for extra information. You should adopt consistent, well-designed visual deliverables (logo, images, etc.) and engage customers to research more about you. Provide them all available ways of communication such as social media accounts, customer support forms, or email addresses.
2) Improve Customer Support
After someone decides to go with your products and services, you should have a comprehensive and fast-reacting customer support strategy. Social media can increase customer support, through live chats and messages, and make your customers feel appreciated.
At the end of each discussion, you can ask for their email address to send them an evaluation form of the support given. You can use free email marketing services that provide personalized and customized email campaigns, based on your company’s niche, values, and mechanisms.
3) Educate and Inform
Besides engaging with customers, you can use social media to educate and disseminate valuable information to your customers. By doing so, your customers will value you more by recognizing that you are an expert on your niche.
When giving extra information regarding your market, customers will know what to search for on their own. And when they see that your company provides everything and then some more, they will look to you for support and information. This will build trust and loyalty with your customers.
You can utilize different tools like podcast hosting, live videos and blog posts, and get creative with the way you share educational information. For example, you can share a live video from one of your team members discussing new ideas, tools, or strategies.
4) Give Extra Value To Products
This is the most fun and creative part. Each company has products and services that are used in a particular way. But, you can get creative and let them know that your products have other uses — secret ones.
Let your customers express their creativity by engaging your customers and make them a part of your social media strategy. For example, you can create a hashtag campaign on twitter with the name of your product and ask your customers to give their own unique way of using your product. This would engage your customers, make your strategy more interactive, spread your message in different accounts, and even give yourself a chance to go viral!
5) Welcome Feedback and Use It Wisely
Through social media, customers will be more willing to provide feedback on your products and services. You should be prepared to receive any kind of feedback, educate your employees to respond appropriately to feedback, and have a strategy taking the feedback into consideration when planning your business development strategy.
It’s critical to understand that a lot of companies receive feedback on social media, and never reply or leverage the received feedback. If your company does, then you’ll be one step ahead of your competition.
6) Storytelling Advocacy
As mentioned earlier, using social media properly can let you engage with your customers by making them a part of your brand. Especially if you are a B2B company, you can use existing customers as your testimonials.
Let them tell their story of what they were searching for and how your company has provided their answer.
This will be beneficial for both sides. You will have social proof of your high-quality work and services, while your clients will raise awareness of their own company to your audience.
7) Limited Loyalty Offers
You can use social media to schedule posts that privilege loyal followers of your accounts.
You should probably take advantage of an efficient social media management tool, which will share platform-based posts on your social media.
For example, provide a specific discount code for a product for the next 2 hours. As such, customers that are loyal and follow your accounts will have the opportunity to take advantage of your discount code.
Such techniques are based on feelings of privilege, uniqueness and urgency, which create the right conditions to rapidly increase your sales.
Final Thoughts
To make everything clear and simple, social media is one of the most effective means of communicating with people. With almost everyone checking their social media accounts daily, you can utilize this reality and engage with people.
Focusing on your existing customers and how you connect with them is vital for your customer retention strategy and improves your marketing results.
Don’t forget that by keeping customers satisfied and loyal to your brand, they will become the best advocates for your brand.
Let us know what you think about leveraging social media to increase customer retention. What has your company done so far and what are you planning ahead?
Till next time. Keep engaging your customers!
