15+ Interesting CRM Techniques & Customer Retention Strategies

Acquiring new customers is a way to grow your business, but retaining the existing ones is a way to sustain your business.

In fact, the customer retention cost is 6 to 7 times less than the cost of acquiring new customers.

However, customer retention requires more effort and strategic planning.

So, let’s understand what these customer retention strategies are, and how can CRM help.

Why Is Customer Retention Important?

Here’re a few factors that make customer retention important for business success and growth.

• Retaining an existing customer is 6-7 times more affordable than acquiring a new customer. It saves you on marketing and advertising costs spent to attract new customers.
• A 5 percent increase in customer retention often leads to a rise in the company’s revenue by 25 percent. Because your existing customers are more likely to purchase your product with a shorter sales cycle.
• Happy and satisfied customers will refer you to their friends, family, and colleagues which leads to free customer acquisition. Word-of-mouth marketing is still the most trusted form of advertising.
• Repetitive and loyal customers buy more often from you because they know the value of the product. They have already experienced your product and will be willing to spend more.

How To Calculate Customer Retention Rate?

You can easily calculate customer retention rate by using this customer retention formula.

• Start by finding out the number of customers at the end of a given period like a week or month.
• Next, subtract the number of newly acquired customers in the same period.
• Divide this by the number of customers you had at the beginning of that period.
• Now, multiply the whole equation with 100 to find the rate.

How Can CRM Software Help in Customer Retention Strategies?

Happy customers make a successful business, and customer relationship management software can help you in achieving this. Here’s how CRM software can help in client retention.

Create a personalized customer experience with CRM’s automated and customized emails, text messages, and notifications.

Easily up-sell and cross-sell by knowing your customer’s journey, their interest, pain points, engagement sources, and purchasing habits.

Create Service Level Agreements (SLAs) to maintain utmost transparency in the provider-client relationship.

Efficiently manage multiple client queries with Case Management module to perform tasks such as tracking, assigning, and resolving tickets.

Suggested Read: Customer Loyalty Programs: 10 Top Tips for Customer Retention

15+ Best Customer Retention Strategies

• Set Realistic Expectations in the First Place

To acquire new customers, it is likely for businesses to over commit results and outcomes. But you should set realistic expectations for your clients, so you don’t end up disappointed and losing them.

Example of Customer Retention Strategies for Digital Marketing

Every client comes to a digital marketing agency, expecting to rank first in Google search. But, as an organization, make it clear to your clients that it is not a one-night miracle. Gaining the first position and maintaining it on Google searches requires a constant effort of revamping and optimizing the content.

To make this client retention strategy stronger, sign SLAs to avoid any disputes in the future.

• Use Automated Customer Service Tools

As your business grows, it gets difficult to manually manage customer inquiries. Instead, you can use automated customer service tools to prioritize their queries and provide real-time solutions.

Example of Customer Retention Strategies for SaaS Companies

The leading edtech startup, Byju’s used automated self-service customer tools. Customers can themselves place an order inquiry and check its status from the IVR. This reduces the customer’s waiting time as they can know the answer to basic questions about the validity of their plans.

Also, the customer care representatives spend their time only addressing critical queries that require human intervention.

Suggested Read: How Can CRM Help with Your Customer Retention Strategies

• Join Hands with Your Customers to Serve a Purpose

Customers love spending on products when they know that their money is contributing to a cause.

Example of Customer Retention Strategies for Consumer Goods

The Procter & Gamble Company (P&G) used cause-related marketing. The company advertised the Shiksha campaign, where a part of every purchase of a P&G product goes into building schools. This customer retention marketing ingrained a feeling of responsibility in their consumers to keep buying P&G products and support children who can’t go to school.

• Pamper Your Customers with Convenience

Customers don’t wish to wait longer for your product or service. Give them convenient options such as pre-booking, pre-order, multiple payment options, delivery options, etc.

Example of Customer Retention Strategies for Restaurants

A popular food chain brand, Dominos allows its customers to place orders at their utmost convenience. Customers can choose from delivery options like take away or delivery, pre-set time for order, and select a preferred payment option. This customer retention strategy offers convenience while saving customers time.

• Be Accessible to Your Customers on All Platforms

Apart from your dedicated customer support platforms, provide customer service on other platforms, and guide them to the right point of contact.

Example of Customer Retention Strategies for Restaurants

Customer inquiries on Zomato on how to book a table at your restaurant in advance. Your team should be active and instantly reply to inquiries and provide the right solution to guide the customer on the advance booking process. This customer retention technique ensures your customers that their inquiries will be resolved on all platforms.

Suggested Read: Types of CRM Software: How Should You Choose One for Your Business

• Constantly Communicate with your Customers

Keep your customers in the communication loop to keep them updated on project progress. In this case, if you miss some deadlines or face any challenges, your client is aware of it and not isolated.

Example of Customer Retention Strategies in B2B

A B2B business that provides raw materials to a garment manufacturing company. It happens that the delivery of raw materials gets affected by uncontrollable factors like road blockages or weather conditions. In this case, inform them about the situation and how you are trying to do your best, they will surely sympathize and adjust.

• Offer Additional Benefits to Your Subscribed Customers

Customers love it when they are treated well with special benefits. Then it becomes hard for them to leave these extra benefits and choose any other product.

Example of Customer Retention Strategies for eCommerce

Amazon Prime members are eligible for faster delivery as compared to their non-subscribed users. Amazon uses this customer acquisition and retention strategy to lure its new customers into buying their Prime membership.

• Empower Customers with Decision Making Power

Use customer engagement strategies to give diverse spending options to your customers. This customer loyalty strategy will make your customer feel heard.

Example of Customer Retention Strategies for Service Industry

The DTH service provider, TATA Sky launched a social media ‘Daily Dillagi’ campaign to promote ‘pay only when you watch’ economic recharges in rural areas. It narrated a love story in 9 short films, where customers on social media decided what would happen next in the story. This kept them engaged for what was coming next.

TATA sky also used the campaign tagline, ‘daily milenge toh pyaar toh hoga hi’ as a customer retention technique to meet their customers repeatedly.

Suggested Read: Best Open Source & Free CRM Software for SMBs

• Share Customer Success Stories

Word of mouth is till date one of the best marketing, customer acquisition, and retention strategies. Online reviews, ratings, client testimonials, and success stories are subtle ways to promote your services and show customer happiness.

Example of Customer Retention Strategies for Small Business

Getting customer feedback in the form of reviews and ratings makes your customers’ feedback feel valued, making them stick around. Also, it narrates how your product has helped others directly from the users’ mouths. It is a great customer retention strategy for small businesses that have a small network.

• Frequently Surprise Your Customers

Customers love it when they get something extra, especially when they are not expecting it. Adding surprises raises curiosity in them, and as a result, they’ll want to order more to get more surprises.

Example of Customer Retention Strategies for Small Business

Customers buy the same product from different brands, but if you want them to remember your small business, you need to do something extra. You can use customer loyalty strategies to surprise them by adding a freebie like an extra small product, coupon, discount card, etc. This will ensure that they remember to shop from you the next time and get one more surprise.

• Incentivize Your Customers Before They Terminate Your Service

Consumers tend to discontinue or cancel their subscriptions right before the day when they are billed. But here is the time to give them an incentive and make them stay.

Example of Customer Retention Strategies for SaaS

In Adobe, when a subscriber of an annual plan cancels their subscription mid-way, Adobe offers free two months free as an incentive. The SaaS company, Adobe uses this customer retention strategy where customers give a second thought to not cancel their long-term partnership and take two months of free service.

Suggested Read: Benefits of CRM Automation to Improve your Sales & Marketing

• Maintain the Trust of Your Customers

Maintaining customers’ trust is one of the greatest customer loyalty strategies of all time. When your customers know that they will get the best product or service, they are more likely to return.

Example of Customer Retention Strategies for Consumer Goods

When Cadbury went through worm controversy it became hard for them to gain back the trust of their loyal customers. So, they used rational advertising to show product manufacturing directly from their factories to demonstrate the quality assurance in manufacturing.

• Build a Community Around Your Service or Product

Create a niche community that believes in your product or service and start conversations that matter to the subject. This will attract more consumers who are driven by the same idea and join the community quickly.

Example of Customer Retention Strategies for Telecom

To successfully launch itself, Jio targeted the community of internet users who desired high-speed 4G internet at affordable prices. It made its telecom service available free of cost, just to create a dedicated community that is loyal to its brand and service.

• Give Referral Programs

Offer additional benefits to your existing customers to honor their loyalty. This customer retention strategy will make them feel appreciated and result in a long-term association.

Example of Customer Retention Strategies for Banks

A bank is a financial institution that completely works on trust. Banks can use referral programs as a part of their customer retention strategy like reward points, cash rebates, etc.

Existing customers will bring in new people who will join in to take benefits of these referral programs. This will help financial institutions like banks in customer acquisition and retention.

• Become a Habit for Your Customer

Making your product a part of your customer’s lifestyle is one of the best customer retention strategies.

Example of Customer Retention Strategies for Apps

Health and fitness apps have cracked the formula for customer loyalty strategy by becoming a part of customer’s lifestyles. Product features like step tracking, heartbeat tracking, water tracking, etc., have become a part of their routine and are inseparable.

Suggested Read: Top CRM in Telecom Industry: Its Roles & Benefits

How Does EngageBay CRM Help with Customer Retention?

EngageBay CRM is a perfect system that can help your business with customer retention. The CRM software enables you to extend smart support to your customers and deliver customer happiness.

This CRM system helps you in identifying new opportunities and converting your visitors into customers. It helps you in managing four major areas with its system:

• CRM: Manage all the information of your customer with CRM’s contact management. This helps in building stronger relationships as you are well-informed about the customer and their journey so far with your brand.

• Marketing Automation: Automate marketing processes to save your time and effort. Also, make your customers feel special by sending personalized notifications, emails, and SMS using automation.

• Helpdesk: Provide quick and instant customer support to your customers. Effectively manage multiple queries with ticket management, and ticket automation. Customers love it when brands understand their concerns and provide the right solutions.

• Live Chat: It enables you to reply instantly to any of your customer’s inquiries. Use notifications and shortcuts to speed up the process and boost your customer happiness. Customers will always be associated with brands where they are heard.

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Suggested read: Text Messaging for Customer Retention: Everything You Need to Know

To Conclude

Customer retention is more inexpensive than new customer acquisition.

Use CRM software to analyze your customers’ buying habits and understand what works the best for them. Using this CRM data, strategically create customer acquisition and retention strategies and increase customer happiness. Because remember, every customer retention technique will not work the same for you, so understand your customers well.

Related Categories: CRM Software | Loyalty Management Software | Marketing Automation Software