There is a wide range of brands offering a variety of products for every class of consumer. Brands that are successful offer quality products, market them well to the public, are trustworthy, have affordable prices and offer post-sales service facilities. Because of increased competition, companies are now trying to attract new customers and increase customer retention through the use of rewards programs.
These days, you can’t shop anywhere without having a card or offering a phone number at the time of purchase. At first, customers found this annoying and impractical. Often customers would deny any personal information to cashiers or salespeople out of fear of being slammed with coupons, newsletters and other useless information.
The central concept to customer retention is developing relationships with your clients and building trust. You achieve this by always following through with deadlines, meeting your deliverables, and giving good customer service. Lacking in any of these areas can be imminently destructive to your business.
Today, customer retention programs are designed to minimize these nuisances and truly reward the customer. Instead of sending customers tons of emails and physical letters, like coupons and gift certificates, companies are now offering an easy to use points system customers can use right in their local store. Going above and beyond customer’s expectations is a great way to increase trust and keep retention rates high.
By implementing strategies that allow current clients to keep using your brand, you reach out to potential customers and turn them into regular consumers. Adding value is also critical to client retention. You have to anticipate how clients can benefit from working with you in addition with coming through on the deliverables you promise. You have to make it easy. If the program is too convoluted and requires too much work on the side of the consumer, you may have a negative effect.
The best customer rewards programs acquire a vast amount of information from a customer for very little time or effort. This opens up the potential for post-sales opportunities where you can inform existing clients about new products and services. For growing businesses it may be important to know addresses of customers in an effort to see where boundaries for new stores may be set. In the case of older businesses, it is not necessary and may turn off some of your existing clientele. Make sure your business plan is clear and you know what you want from your customer retention program before implementing anything. This can save you thousands on marketing and sales.
About the Author
Sarah Trell is a freelance writer based in Southern California. She keeps her readers up to date on the latest in customer retention strategies, loyalty management programs and other related topics. She would love to hear any and all feedback below!