Keep customers loyal
A bucket with a hole takes twice as long to fill than one without. It’s the same in business. Every customer you lose is another you need to gain, just to break even. And once they’ve left, it’s even harder to win them back. It can even ripple out and affect your reputation with others, making it more and more difficult to find new customers.
So if your business isn’t growing as fast as you want, it isn’t always down to your marketing. You need to keep your current customers loyal if you want to keep growing.
Look through the customer journey
Before you can learn anything, you need to figure out exactly when you expect them to naturally leave. There’s always a point where a customer outgrows you or changes their lifestyle. A graphic designer that retires isn’t likely to keep subscribing to your software, for example.
Once you know that natural end, you can look for where people are leaving early. Are they going to a competitor? Are they just frustrated with you? Are they just trying you out and haven’t fully committed? Or did you solve their problem and didn’t offer anything to keep them around?
You might be able to keep customers around with extra products or services. But mostly, you want to iron out the wrinkles and make sure you don’t give them a reason to switch.
Plug the gaps
Finding those holes isn’t easy, but the process is always the same:
- Walk through the entire process. We look through the customer journey from beginning to end and see exactly what’s happening.
- Speak to your customers. We interview and run focus groups with your customers – both happy and mad – to get their feedback on why they stay and why they leave.
- Plan to fix the problems. Whatever causes a customer to leave, we come up with a strategy to keep them around for as long as possible.
- Create the pieces you need. We make the materials and work with your team to sort out those problems and roll out the plan.
- Keep checking in. We set up how you’ll keep track of whether the plan has been a success and make sure that you’re regularly looking at the flow.
Have you got the right goal?
Keeping customers and turning them into fans isn’t just about your product. It’s about your people and values. Every time you interact with your customers is an opportunity to show why you’re better than your competitors. So ask yourself:
Do you need to motivate your team? Make sure that your people are living your values in every decision that you make. Cultivate a culture that your customers will be proud to support.
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Do you need to stand out from your competitors? If your customers keep swapping to your competition, is it because they don’t see enough difference between you?
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Do you need to streamline your work? The more time you have to focus on your customers, the more likely they’ll stick around. But if you’re constantly fiddling with clunky processes, you’ll never find that time.
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