Written by: Colleen Frye
Customer retention hasn’t always been in the forefront of marketing efforts. In fact, many business owners put it very low on their priority list. Most focus on ‘driving sales’ – which makes sense, who doesn’t want new business? However, there is actually evidence that existing customers are more valuable than new customers!
Consumers today have shorter attention spans and seemingly a lot more options. That’s where we as small business owners and employees have to adjust! According to a study, increasing customer retention by just 5% increases profits by 25%-95%. And it’s A LOT cheaper to execute that, than gain brand new customers on a consistent basis.
But how can you place more emphasis on the current customer in your marketing efforts? We have a few ideas:
Redefine how the customer is measured – what is their true value? Customers are clearly willing to invest with brands that provide value to them. To create a loyal customer base, companies must invest in their customers, too, beginning with redefining how they measure customer value.
Hard reset – take a look into your current structure and how the employees are performing & handling their customers. Performance reviews for employees and results for campaigns should be structured to measure different metrics, not just focus on sales increases.
Learn about your customer – analyze what your customers think about your business, ask them questions, survey them! Do whatever it takes to get a better level of understanding of how your customer interacts with you. Do you really know what your customer is like?