7 Ways to retain your company’s customers and increase sales
Business managers must always be attentive, looking for ways to retain their customers. This is because customer loyalty brings several advantages to the business, such as greater cash flow predictability and improved brand image in the market.
Having loyal customers can also mean increased profits and lower costs. After all, conquering new customers usually requires values higher than those necessary to retain a customer and guarantee frequent sales to people who already know the company.
In this content, you will learn 7 strategies to retain customers and increase company sales!
1. Offer the best service
It is impossible to retain customers without quality service. In practice, this is one of the main criteria related to consumer satisfaction. Therefore, employees who work with the public need to be qualified to adopt best practices.
Furthermore, a well-served customer tends to come back more often, closing new deals — in addition to recommending the company to other interested parties. So it is interesting to invest in training to ensure exclusive service. It is also valid to know the brand’s audience well and offer differentials that please them.
It is worth mentioning that even companies with quality solutions and competitive prices can lose market share due to poor service. On the other hand, serving well makes the business stand out from the competition and adds more value, bringing opportunities to earn more.
2. Invest in relationship
It’s also important to develop bonds with the customer over time, rather than just focusing on the moment of sale. The objective is to create a deeper relationship with consumers, so that they remember the company in future purchases.
Therefore, it is essential to have an efficient after-sales sector. Through it, opportunities arise to communicate with customers after purchase, in order to understand the level of satisfaction, offer support and resolve complaints.
This attitude demonstrates the brand’s greatest concern with the customer’s experience. When realizing this posture, the tendency is for the consumer to have more confidence to continue shopping with her.
Certain business models benefit from creating communities, offering a climate of closer proximity to frequent customers. They can be created on internet forums or on the brand’s own website, bringing opportunities to listen more to consumers and involve them in the business.
3. Have good communication
As you have seen, communication is a relevant factor when it comes to building customer loyalty. Therefore, in addition to providing good service and creating a relationship, it is worth paying attention to the ways in which you communicate with consumers — whether offline or online .
Here, the first step is to choose good communication channels — considering the possibilities of the company and the preferences of each client. For some, receiving a call will be invasive, for example. Others may prefer talking on the phone to receiving messages or email.
So communication can be thought of strategically for loyalty. This is the case of sending messages with discount coupons at certain times. Having a newsletter to share relevant topics with customers can also be interesting.
4. Be transparent and trustworthy
Buyers won’t become loyal customers of a company they don’t trust. In this sense, a fundamental step to build trust with the public is to be realistic in the promises made. This strengthens the brand’s reputation.
When a promise cannot be fulfilled, it is important to let the consumer know. Therefore, being transparent — even in difficult times — becomes one of the main precautions that must be observed for the success of the strategy.
The way the brand solves consumers’ problems , for example, makes a lot of difference in their buying decision. Offering solutions that cannot be really applied or that are not effective for the situation will undermine the customer’s trust.
For this reason, it is essential to have a qualified team that understands the limits of what can be done and can have humanized and transparent communication. In this way, the company’s image is strengthened. In addition to retaining customers, this helps to attract more consumers.
5. Develop campaigns for loyalty
Customers like to feel that they are remembered by the brand. With this, they tend to strengthen the relationship and remain faithful to the company. Thus, creating specific campaigns for those who have already purchased is a strategy that can be used.
A widely used example is loyalty cards — in which a certain number of purchases entitles you to discounts or gratuity.
Another idea to use is the scoring system. With it, each purchase made results in points that can be exchanged for rewards in the future. After all, guaranteeing exclusive benefits is one more way to encourage customer loyalty.
6. Ask for feedback
All planning on ways to retain customers needs to be done based on secure information about the company’s public. With that in mind, it is imperative to ask for feedback from customers to guide decisions.
By knowing what they are thinking about the purchase, decisions regarding campaigns and company communication will be more effective. It is also possible to understand the reasons for dissatisfaction and work to resolve them.
Feedback can be requested in a number of ways. For example, conducting customer satisfaction surveys by phone or email. It is also worth having collaborators attentive to complaint sites to understand the problems that consumers have pointed out and develop solutions.
7. Exceed your customers’ expectations
Finally, remember that the market is highly competitive and there are many companies vying for the public’s attention. Considering this reality, it is not enough to do a good job and have quality products or services.
It is necessary to exceed the expectations that consumers have about the company. An example is being more agile in the service and positively surprising in the resolution of eventual problems. This attitude usually makes the customer leave with a positive perception of the brand.
Another factor that helps to exceed expectations is to show expertise in your area. Having a well-qualified team to answer all questions from customers and even provide guidance increases authority.
