5 Things Successful Companies Do to Retain Customers

The most successful companies have figured it out: they know how to get customers, and, more important, they know how to keep them. Here are the top 5 ways to keep your customers.

Make employees happy.

Let’s face it. Nobody likes to deal with a grumpy, disgruntled employee who hates his job, hates his boss, and wishes his lunch break was at noon instead of one. Once your customer interacts with Mr. Grumpy, that customer may not be your customer any more. To make things worse, the negative experience with Mr. Grumpy may end up being shared on Yelp, Twitter, or Facebook and influencing potential customers the wrong way.

Employees who are happy with their jobs generally radiate that good mood toward others. They are friendly and pleasant to deal with, they will go the extra mile to help because they love what they do and they really do care. Positive experiences with happy employees keep customers coming back.

Deliver on promises.

Whatever your business does—whether you offer a service or sell a product—make sure it’s high quality and it works. For instance, if you run a cleaning service, the last thing you want is for your customer to run their finger across a picture frame after a cleaning and end up with a finger full of dust.

Related Article: Is Customer Loyalty the Same as Retention?

Failing to deliver on company promises and customer expectations will lose the customers you’ve worked so hard to acquire. To avoid this, make sure you’re testing products for quality, and training your employees to perform services with skill and expertise.

Start a conversation.

Your customers are full of information that can help you. They can tell you what you’re doing right, what you’re doing wrong, and what you could be doing that you aren’t. All you have to do is start a conversation and listen.

So how do you start a conversation? There are many ways to interact with your customers. Simply asking them, either in person or over the phone, when you are doing business together is one easy way. You can send them online for a survey, or connect over social media. Social media allows companies to develop and deepen relationships with customers, and it’s a great outlet for asking questions and finding out information.

Don’t forget to search for your company online if you haven’t already. See if your customers are already talking about you. If they are, think about how you can join and steer the existing conversation.

Reward your best customers.

Your best customers may be your biggest spenders or simply your most frequent fliers. However you define “best,” take time to cultivate your relationship with these important customers. They are invested in you; you should invest in them, too.

Reward your best customers with special discounts, notify them about sales before everyone else, or let them shop a sale first. Even a “small” gift, like a free cup of coffee after buying ten cups, can make a customer happy and give them incentive to keep coming back for more.

A little brainstorming with your team can show that there are many ways to make your best customers feel special.

Go above and beyond.

Companies who go above and beyond are able to retain customers even when prices may be lower elsewhere. This means having employees who are willing to do more than just the basics of their job, which also means giving those employees the power to go outside the box:

• Helping a customer carry items to their car
• Offering the customer coffee or water while they wait
• Ordering the same item from another location and having it shipped for the customer
• Letting customers return items without hassle
• Honoring sale prices even after the sale has expired
• Free shipping
• Sending handwritten thank you cards

Going above and beyond means doing those little things that help that the customer isn’t expecting. Knowing they will be taken care of, that they can return things without a problem, that shipping is free and things like that keep customers coming back over and over again. They know they will have a good experience, and that there is little risk involved.

Author: With 29 years of executive level call center experience and 8 years of digital marketing, Mike Cynar knows the call center industry from top to bottom. Since 2011 he has served both as a National Sales Manager and as the Digital Marketing Manager at MAP Communications, a Chesapeake, VA based business which began operations in 1991 delivering world class call center services and live answering service solutions to more than 15,000 businesses.