In this entrepreneurial world, there is a surge of startups that keep coming up day in and day out.
With a sole objective of making a mark in the business community and bringing about a change in the lives of people, these startups have to strive to be relevant throughout.
However, many entrepreneurs have to go an extra mile to achieve it, and they still find it hard to hook on to their customers.
Therefore, customer retention is one of the topmost priorities for the startups in the first place. Investors also deem it a major factor in determining whether a startup’s product or service is going to be successful in the market or not.
We can find numerous examples of how some of the successful companies have come up with strategies and innovative ways to ensure that their customers put a value on them and stay loyal.
A significant part of a startup business is to win as many customers as it can.
It is an established fact that the clients always want better products and better services. They will always keep moving on to those who will best fulfill their needs and provide a great experience.
So, just like anything else, customers could also be lost, stolen, or escaped. For the entrepreneurs, this analogy comes heavily on them as they get to realize what it takes to retain customers and make them loyal.
The following tips can be extremely helpful for the startups concerning customer retention:
5 Customer Retention Ideas
1. What is it that really drives your customer?
It is extremely crucial to understand the factors that drive the customers the most.
So, when the consumers want to buy the items which they are not sure of, then they tend to explore, discover and find unique things. At this instant, the startup businesses need to present interesting products to these customers.
The strategy here is – they should personalize the product in such a manner that it should resonate with their needs.
Startups should recommend the engaging products that can go much beyond what people had looked for. If the resulting experience is both enriching and fulfilling for the customers by using the unique products, then they get engaged with the brand even more.
It is without a doubt one of the effective strategies for increasing the customer base and retaining them. So, in a nutshell, if the startups succeed in providing a deeper experience to the customers, they feel more and more connected to the brand.
2. Build a healthy relationship online.
In this age of growing mobile internet users, the online presence of a company is the most necessary condition for becoming successful. Because most of the clients are online, building an online relationship with them takes center stage.
With the advent social media, it is paramount to connect with the customers through different platforms available on social media. It is strongly recommended that startups should focus on their efforts on building profiles on social media platforms like LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook.
In terms of online presence, the startups should have a highly engaging and user-friendly website in which customers are forced to stay for a while and explore a little bit more. Therefore, to achieve that, a strong emphasis must be given to the quality of website design.
3. All the promotions on the website should be relevant.
Promotions running on a site are proving to be a highly effective way regarding retaining the customers by making them actively engaged.
As per a survey, 80% of a company’s revenues will be earned from the 20% of its current customers.
The underlying fact here is that the startups should run relevant and hassle-free promotions that benefit them as well. Relevant promotions drive the users to do more business with the companies. So, the promotions like these sometimes create a win-win situation for customers and businesses.
Furthermore, loyalty programs such as special discounts and cash return policies are other great customer retention ideas.
4. Offer proper solutions to the customers before they arise.
To a great extent, customer loyalty, and hence, customer retention is largely dependent upon customer service.
It is more advantageous for the companies if their customer service is anticipatory in nature. Which means it is excellent for the consulting team of a startup company to anticipate the possible problems that might occur at the end of a customer and provide them workable and actionable solutions.
Also read: How to Boost Conversions and Retention with Customer Intelligence
5. Understanding customer feedback.
The marketing team of startups should work hard to gather data and information and customer needs. They can use various methodologies to do that, and customer feedback is one of them.
The direct feedback coming from customers is vital in determining their needs and tastes. When a business introduces new products in the market, the feedback is the only parameter to measure its future success.
However, when it comes to the startups, customer feedback is very necessary to eliminate the glitches or add further features and attributes. Therefore, without the proper analysis of customer feedback, a startup could not possibly meet the precise requirements of its customers.
I hope you enjoyed this list of customer retention ideas.
About The Author
Birbahadur Singh is an entrepreneur, Internet marketer, and co-founder of Lbswebsoft. He has 10 years of online marketing experience and helping some of the biggest companies build their brands and keep their reputation while increasing sales in the process.