Customer retention strategy, do you have one? One secret of successful a business is making the customer happy and satisfied for them to come back for more.
The cost of getting a new customer is significantly higher than retaining the clients that you already have.
Avoid making mistakes of losing a customer because you did not do things right.
You got a new client, great!
Are you following the 3 R’s to maximize your business with that new client? Will they refer you, will they retail you, can you resell them?
Getting a client is great, but to truly grow your business and be successful you must follow the 3 Rs!
How do you make sure that your customer refer you? How do you make sure that you retain that client after your work with them is done and that they’ll always come back?
And if you have other offerings beyond the first services they used, how do you make sure that they will come to you for those as well?
We all think that our clients love us and that they’re never going to forget us, right? But this doesn’t happen automatically. It takes some effort on your part.
Do you know that it costs you seven times more money to obtain a new client than it does to keep an existing one?
What does that tell us? It tells us that, while getting leads is important and easy, retaining the clients that we already have, making sure that they come back with us, and that they want to work with us again is incredibly valuable in building a sustainable business.
In his book, Never Lose a Customer Again: Turn Any Sale into Lifelong Loyalty in 100 Days, Joey Coleman gives some really interesting statistics. He writes that just a 5% improvement in customer retention rates will yield a 25% to 100% increase in profits.
He also says that according to marketing metrics, when selling to a new prospect you have a 5% to 20% chance of making the sale.
But when you’re selling to an existing customer, that probability skyrockets to 60% to 70%.
What about client retention? According to Coleman’s book, if a company has a 5% churn rate versus a 20% churn rate, that improved retention will translate into a positive 280% increase in the company’s valuation over a five-year period.
This means that you treat every client equally, no matter what size the commission or payout is. You keep in contact with them and you show them you value them.
It’s not about the money. It’s the customer experience that is so important to me.
I love having the ‘by referral only’ attitude. It’s not only more productive but I’m always getting new clients that I really want to have because they’ve been referred by my past clients.
The key to refer, retain, resell is top of mind awareness, meaning your clients think of you and remember you. Just the other day, my husband and I were starting some work on our property. He said, “Babe, who was that guy that cut our trees? He was really good.”
This contractor had done work for us about four or five years before. I said, “I can’t remember, I can’t remember who it was. But, yeah, he was terrific.”
How often has that happened to you, where someone provided amazing service but when you need them again, you can’t remember their name?
Or how many times have you worked with a particular service provider but when you need that service again, you don’t even think of them? You had every intention to use that professional again, but “out of sight out of mind.”.
With so much bombarding us every day, it’s so easy to forget people who’ve provided good service for us. To be honest, in the first ten years of my real estate business, I wasn’t very good at keeping in touch with past clients and following up.
I can’t tell you how many times back then that I’d see a client, and they’d be so happy to see me.
Then they’d say, “Oh, Krista, we bought a house. We’re so excited.” And I’d think, “What the heck?!?” I knew they loved working with me, but I didn’t keep in touch with them.
Now I understand that prior clients are assets that are way too precious to be treated like yesterday’s newspaper! Not following up back then cost me a lot of business.
My father used to own a company in Tahoe, NV called Second Home Care that does monthly maintenance on vacation homes. He told me that if his clients didn’t get an update from him at least once per month about their home and the specific maintenance his company performed for them, his company would lose thousands of dollars every year.
You can find literally thousands of ways to stay in touch with your clients so that they keep you in mind.
I try to stay in front of my clients as much as possible in ways they’ll appreciate, not ways that just annoy them. Some are digital, some face to face.
With both, I have two rules: 1. Whatever you do, do it differently than everyone else is doing it. Be creative. Be innovative. Be different and give value. 2. Do it consistently. If you only plan to do it once or twice, don’t bother doing it at all!
Here are some ways I stay in touch with my clients
1. The number one way to stay in touch is using social media and creating videos that provide value. With social media, you are showing up where they are. You can upload your contact list into Facebook to capture your past clients.
When you do this consistently, you are staying top of mind awareness.
Alex Mayer, one of my coaching clients, said that his referral business had increased by eight times just from consistently using video and properly distributing them.
Your past clients can’t help but remember you when they continue to see you on social media. Even if they don’t have a need for your services, they are reminded to refer you to those who may. This is the single BEST way to stay top of mind awareness.
Social media is where most everyone is.
Think about when you go out to dinner: When you look around the restaurant, you’ll see half the people with their heads down looking at their phones. More often than not, they are on social media.
Think about Holiday parties: Everyone does Christmas parties, so I do a Thanksgiving party with a pie giveaway. At Christmas, I’ll do an event where we serve hot chocolate and cookies, have Santa, a balloon maker, face painting, and a jumpy house for the kids.
I also encourage everyone to bring canned goods for the local food drive. 3. Holiday greetings: Rather than cards, I send out a blast video text message wishing everyone Happy Holidays (93% of all text messages get opened within 5 minutes). 4. Client appreciation parties: I do one every year with food, a “casino” night with play money, and games with prizes. 5. BombBomb video emails: I send out generic Happy Birthday, Happy Anniversary, and Happy Anniversary on the sale or purchase of their house videos.
Though the message is the same, their name shows up in the greeting, so it feels as if it was made just for them.
Different methods work for different businesses or professions. Which methods have worked for you and which ones have not worked? As always, I’m here to serve, Krista Mashore with Krista Mashore Coaching.
