Keeping Customers
Your loyal dog
Customer expectations – in a multi-media age – is that product and services can be purchased online at the lowest price point. Comparison sites have encouraged customers to shop around for the best deal, and this means for providers whose services expire annually that the renewal process is at risk of churn. So how do you make your customers stay loyal to you, in the same way a dog is to its owner? Treat them well, with respect and they will reward you with their support.Factors to consider
One aspect of digital services that consumers like is the transparency to compare equivalent products between suppliers. The rise of comparison websites has made it easy to make an informed decision at the point of service renewal. For providers, the unintended consequence of this is that it is just as easy for customers to switch providers each year. So once you have invested in acquiring a customer – particularly one which is in your target value segment – what do you need to do to retain them?
Here are three methods to consider:
- Provide a differentiated service for members of your loyalty programme – which could take a variety of forms such as preferential pricing, early access to new products, faster resolution times to customer service issues etc.
- Create advocates for your brand – and reward them for voicing their opinions – which plays well into the concept of crowdsourcing where customers can get rewarded for dealing with enquiries from other customers
- Focus on customer effort as a measure i.e. being easy to do business with – whilst it is popular to focus on Net Promoter Score (NPS) as a measure of loyalty, it is equally important to make it simple for customers to interact with you, meaning that they can quickly achieve their task online at a time of their choosing.
By implementing tactics such as these then when it comes to the renewal ‘Moment of Truth’ the customer will remember you for not only the being the right decision at the original time of purchase but more importantly still being the right decision now. They should feel valued, have a common sense of purpose and recognise that moving to any rival competitor – to save some money – is really not worth the hassle.
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