One of the most common struggles for small business owners, or any company for that matter, is trying to avoid losing customers. Like death and taxes, customer attrition is just one of those things you can’t avoid. While it’s possible to reduce churn rate, no matter what you do, some customers will always leave. This is a simply the truth of customer retention.
However, while you might not be able to stop every customer from leaving, you can do your part keep customers around. There are plenty of different strategies for doing this, but they can often drive up your customer acquisition costs and leave you worse off than you started.
In this article, we are going to walk you through how to reduce customer attrition. Not only that, but we will show you how to do so without breaking the bank. Let’s get started.
The slow drain of customer attrition
When you first start to notice customer attrition and churn with your audience, it can feel like you are doing something wrong. However, the faults or decisions that lead you to this point are often hard to understand and some customers will never tell you why they left.
In this scenario, it’s important to remember that close to 70% of the reasons customers leave has nothing to do with the product, but instead poor quality of service. You can have the best product in the world, but without customer service, you will never be able to beat customer attrition.
So, what can be done to fight the slow drain of customer attrition? The first step is to never give up. If you have the wrong mindset, none of the rest of this will matter. Once you are ready to start taking customer retention seriously, the next step is to start monitoring customer activity.
Monitor customers closely
In the world of big data, there are more ways than ever before to monitor your customer’s activity. What they buy, how they buy, and what they do with your products are no reduce to engagement metrics that tell the story of your customer relationship. Not only will this data offer better insights into the minds of your customers, but how to keep them satisfied.
Customer attrition most commonly breeds from lack of activity. Whether this is because customers are distracted by new offerings or simply due to boredom, we may never know. However, it is your job to study their behavior, find weak points, and do your best to fight against them.
Read also: 7 Best Practices for Collecting Customer Feedback
Pinpoint reasons why customers leave
Once you begin monitoring your customer’s behavior you will soon start to see trends that lead up to their eventual churning. This sort of insight is invaluable to your business as you can use it to know when your customers are most vulnerable. Instead of simply allowing customer attrition to take place, this is the perfect time to engage with them and bring them back into the fold.
There are many different customer retention strategies that can be used here to help fight off churn. For instance, sending targeted messages through SMS to customers that are on the verge of leaving might be just the sign they are looking for to stay with your company. It doesn’t always have to be a huge deal, sometimes simply letting them know you still care is enough.
Engage customers through preferred channels
Although we just mentioned SMS marketing, there are many different channels with which you should communicate with your customers. One advantage of SMS that should be applied to other channels is segmentation. By delivering more tailored messaging to your customers based on their habits, you are more likely to have a successful program.
Going back to the customer data we mentioned earlier, that information can often tell you the best way to reach your customers.
Some will prefer email, some will appreciate the speed of SMS, but no matter what it is, by engaging with them in the proper ways, you can do wonders to reduce customer attrition.
Make customer service a hallmark of your business
As we mentioned earlier, customer service is vital to the success of any business, especially when it comes to reducing customer attrition. In 2018, this has never been more true. Look at e-commerce giant Amazon, one of the world’s largest companies built on the idea of exceptional customer service.
Thankfully, there are plenty of mobile marketing tools that can aid any business in improving their overall customer service. For instance, companies have begun running support for their customers through text message marketing. This allows for the company to automate almost the entire process and then simply let it run, improving their lives and those of their customers.
Help them remember why they signed up in the first place
Along with customer service, another key to reducing customer attrition is reminder them why the signed up in the first place. Every one of your customers made the choice at one point to use your business for one reason or another. When they are about to churn, it can be powerful to remind them why they should stay instead.
Customer loyalty programs can be a great way to keep customers interested while highlighting different benefits of your company. For instance, you can reward your customers for staying with you by offering discounts on commonly used services or products.
Like we said, boredom is often the hardest hurdle to get over, so keep things interesting for your customers whenever possible.
Talk to your customers
Finally, our last and simplest advice for reducing customer attrition is to talk to your customers and actually treat them like humans. Most companies out there that fail do so because they view their customers as cogs in a machine. Instead, think of your customer relationships as just that, relationships.
In conclusion, relate customer attrition to spending large bucks to acquire new customers. As business owners, if we can learn the art of customer retention, new customers will follow automatically. Try Gleantap to witness improved customer retention within the first month itself.
Remember, if you are able to treat your customers with dignity and respect while adding value to their lives, you will have customers for life.
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