Top 5 New-Age Customer Retention Strategies to Scale your Business

Begin by undoing the old customer retention strategies.

This pandemic has certainly given birth to the ‘new’ customer. This customer has adopted new routines, lifestyles, priorities and has built new plans to move ahead in life.

Frankly put – you’ll need to undo your previous customer retention strategies that may have worked for your business in the past.

So, what exactly do we mean by customer retention?

The start point of any customer retention strategy begins when the customer comes into contact with the brand. The aim is to build this relationship across generations.

It can be done by developing a new understanding, revamping the rewarding model to establish customer loyalty, boosting customer service and other strategies which we will explore below. Gifting e vouchers in Singapore is one of them.

Simply put, the aim is to reduce customer defections through retention programs or activities. Customer retention strategies aim to maintain the loyalty, trust and commitment of the customer towards the brand.

Next, let’s look into the ‘why’.

Why is customer retention as important as customer acquisition?

The job to acquire the customer has been done. Huge budgets spent during customer acquisition campaigns have already yielded a customer base.

You need not spend more time or budgets on conversion. All efforts have to be directed towards marketing to people who have already shown interest in the product through the value of your product, marketing and advertising.

As per Bain & Company studies, customer retention offers more sustainability to business in comparison to customer acquisition. Profits in the range of 25% – 95% are seen in response to an increase of 5% in customer retention.

Customer retention also proves to be more cost-effective for any firm. It costs roughly seven times lesser than customer acquisition.

Let’s dive into the top 5 customer retention strategies that make your customer happy and influence business growth.

It can almost seem like your customer’s behaviours have changed overnight. He has new pain points, new anxieties, new concerns, new ways of finding entertainment and new priorities.

Based on your industry type, design your retention strategy by asking questions that matter. Some examples are:

• Is your customer planning his/her grocery orders in advance rather than buying on-demand?
• Is he buying in bulk?
• Is he concerned about the safety of public transport?
• Is your customer still struggling to balance work, kids, pets and the home?
• Is your customer spending more time on his mobile phone?
• Are people buying more insurance policies?

Once you have the data of the newly shaped customer in this pandemic era, you need to put marketing and advertising strategies in place. What kind of strategies are we talking about? Only ones that offer real value to your customers.

Imagine that you own a bakery. In the current time, your typical customer may be anxious to travel on public transport or struggle to find the time to physically come to your store due to his new work-from-home schedule.

Assess if you can work out a home-delivery model to make it more convenient for customers to purchase your baked goods.

This way, you can influence the customer’s trust, commitment and brand affinity.

Why should your customer return to you?
There needs to be constant encouragement from brands to excite customers to return to them. It is estimated that 32% customers enjoy loyalty programmes as a way to return to the brand. For example, leveraging E vouchers in Singapore.

The next question that you may ask would be ‘But wouldn’t that increase my business’ overhead expenses?’

Here are some ways in which loyalty programmes can be done in a cost-effective manner, and in fact boost profits.

• Queues can kill. Offer quick VIP access to the store when there is a sale.

• Tie up with partners to give out e-vouchers and gift vouchers of your brand. For instance, UNIQGIFT gift vouchers are simple to use and accepted at over 450 retail outlets in Singapore.

• Insider rewards like member-only event invites

• Introduce brand communities. One example would be Nike. It launched a concept store just for its NikePlus members.

Inaccessible and bad customer service may drive customers away.
With social distancing norms in place, people are preferring to get the job done through their mobile phones or online means.

In this light, customer service needs to re-shape. Convenience and knowledge are extremely important for any customer today.

Train your customer service staff to upgrade. For instance, you can train your staff to answer queries through live chat functions that can be installed on your websites.

Furthermore, you can also update your customers through social media posts about what new measures your company has taken to ensure quality customer service even through the pandemic times.

Promoting your product isn’t enough. You need to re-position it by marking out your product and brand’s Unique Selling Points (USPs). For instance, if your company sells cushions, you can position the product as a solution to the common back pain experienced by many people who are working from home without quality chairs.

You need to ensure that your customer’s journey with the brand is made special. Let them know that you care for them – and they would return to you.

At UNIQGIFT, we offer attractive gift vouchers in Singapore that help to boost your customer loyalty programmes. If you would like to find out more, enquire here.