Customer retention strategies for a small business

Loyalty schemes and insider benefits

You can use a loyalty scheme to incentivise your customers to make repeat purchases, refer other people or leave reviews.

Existing customers are much more likely than new prospects to make repeat purchases, so rewarding them for doing so is a great way of encouraging them to stay loyal.

Loyalty schemes work well when they reward repeat purchases as it encourages customers to continue using your products in the future and makes them feel valued.

To create an effective loyalty scheme that keeps existing customers coming back again and again, you need to make sure it’s attractive enough for them not only during their initial membership period but also after its expiration date has passed as well.

After-sales support

After-sales support is another way that you can show your customers that you value them. After all, it's important to keep your customers happy and coming back for more.

There are several ways to do this:

• When a customer receives their product, give them a call to check in on how things went with the delivery and installation of their product. Ask if they have any questions or concerns about the product and try to address those issues right away so that they don't become big problems later on down the line.
• Set up a customer service hotline where people can call or email in with questions about any aspect of their experience with your business—from ordering products online through delivery options (i.e., shipping costs) and installation processes; having problems setting up an account; getting technical support over live chat or email; getting help finding replacement parts...the list goes on!
• Keep track of what types of issues come up most often among different groups (i.e., Millennials vs Baby Boomers vs Gen Zers) so that you know where there may be some room for improvement in certain areas like website design or shipping times between countries/states/regions within one country versus others."

Telling the business’s story through marketing

The first step in building customer loyalty is telling your business’s story. You need to tell your customers about why you do what you do, how you do it and what standards and values guide your business. This will help them understand what makes you different from other companies in the market, which means that they’re more likely to become repeat customers if they enjoy working with your company.

You should also make sure that customers know who the people behind the scenes are; for example, if someone has been working for a long time on a product or service and is proud of their work, let them talk about it! Employees can be great assets when it comes to building trust with new customers because they can give personal recommendations based on their own experiences using products or services from within the company itself (this isn’t necessarily true if everyone works remotely).

Personalisation

Personalising your service is a great way to keep customers coming back. Many people enjoy having their shopping needs catered to specifically, and some are willing to pay more for the privilege of being treated as individuals.

It doesn't take much effort or cost to personalise your business' services; you can put some thought into how you relate to the customer, too: their name, where they live and work and so on.

Identify the reasons for customer churn

The first step to improving retention is understanding the reasons for churn in your business. Churn can be caused by a variety of factors, such as:

• A product or service that isn't delivering value to customers
• Customer service issues, like unresponsive agents or late responses
• An overly complicated checkout process

Targeting customers who seem likely to become repeat customers

One of the best ways to increase your customer retention rate is by creating a CRM system. A CRM (customer relationship management) system will help you keep track of all your customers, their preferences and how they react to different products or services. By using data from past interactions with customers, you can identify those who are likely to become repeat customers.

Using data to identify these people is more beneficial than just blindly sending out marketing emails or trying random strategies that don't seem like they'd work well for your company.

Motivated employees makes for happy customers

You can increase employee retention by making them feel valued, respected and appreciated. This is vital to both your success and that of your customers.

The main ways you can do this are:

• Recognition – make sure you take the time to acknowledge employees when they do a great job. You could also reward them with things like gift cards, days off or cash bonuses if they meet certain performance standards over a period of time (like not missing a day’s work in 6 months).
• Flexible working arrangements – if an employee has childcare responsibilities or other commitments outside of work hours that affect their ability to get things done, consider allowing them to work from home or come in later than normal so they don’t have rush out at 5pm every day.
• Training and development – all employees will benefit from having more knowledge about their products/services but some may need specific training depending on their role within the business (such as new product knowledge). Consider offering internal training sessions for everyone so everyone stays up-to-date with developments within the company as well as external training courses that cover new techniques in particular skill sets (such as customer service skills)