How to Improve Customer Satisfaction and Retention
In this post, you’ll learn several ways to improve customer satisfaction and improve your retention rates.
It costs five times more to attract a new customer than it does to retain an existing one, which is why retaining your current customers is so important. The best way to retain customers is to make sure that they’re completely satisfied.
Read on to learn how to improve both customer satisfaction and retention – and ensure that your business continues to grow in the future.
Why Are Customer Satisfaction and Retention Important?
Customer satisfaction measures how well your company, your brands, and your products and services meet customer expectations. If customer expectations are met or exceeded, that customer will be satisfied. If you fail to meet expectations, then that customer will be dissatisfied.
It might seem obvious that generating a high level of customer satisfaction is important. After all, a dissatisfied customer is less likely to buy from you again. Satisfied customers, however, are more likely to become repeat customers. That kind of customer loyalty is necessary to create customer retention.
Customer retention is important because repeat customers buy more often and spend more money with you than do new customers. They’re also more likely to refer your business and products to their friends and family.
Equally important, existing customers are more considerably more profitable than newer ones. A classic study by the Harvard Business School found that businesses that improve their customer retention by just 5% can increase profits by anywhere from 25% to a whopping 95%. That’s easy money.
How to Measure Customer Satisfaction and Retention
There are many ways to measure customer satisfaction and retention. Some of the same KPIs are used to measure both.
To measure customer satisfaction, track the customer satisfaction score (CSAT) and net promoter score. The CSAT is typically tracked by asking customers, “How would you rate your experience?”
To measure customer retention, use the following metrics
- Customer churn
- Revenue churn rate
- Revenue growth rate for existing customers
- Repeat purchase ratio
- Net promoter score
8 Best Practices for Improving Customer Satisfaction and Retention
To improve customer retention, you must improve customer satisfaction. Here are some best practices for doing so.
1. Know Your Customer
To best satisfy your customers, you have to know them. That means conducting customer research to determine things like:
- Who your customers are
- Where your customers live
- What your customers read, watch, and listen to
- What your customers need
- What your customers expect
2. Actively Solicit Customer Feedback – and Act On It
One way to get to know your customers is to encourage their feedback. You can do this via website forms, email solicitations, even entreaties on social media. If you ask your customers how you’re doing, chances are they’ll tell you. You can then act on that information to improve your offerings and hopefully improve customer satisfaction.
3. Provide First-Class Customer Support
To fully satisfy customers, you must provide outstanding customer support. You can’t rely on an indecipherable phone tree or a static contact form to satisfy customers who need your help.
Easily accessible live customer support is imperative. You need to do everything in your power to answer customer questions, solve customer problems and respond to customer complaints quickly and effectively – through whatever channel or medium your customers prefer.
4. Reward Your Loyal Customers
One of the most effective ways to increase customer retention is to reward your most loyal customers. This can take several forms, including:
- Customer loyalty programs
- Frequent customer discounts
- Existing customer-only sales
- First looks at new products
5. Create a Personal Experience
Customers don’t like to be treated like cattle. They want to feel like they’re special and be treated accordingly.
The most effective way to do this is to personalize the customer experience:
- Identify repeat customers on your website and feed them custom pages based on their past purchases and personal preferences
- Offer personalized discounts on products your customers prefer
- Greet your customers by name and remember their past activity
When you create a personal connection with each customer those individuals will be your customers for life.
6. Offer an Omnichannel Experience
Customers today don’t interact with you in a single channel or on a single device. Customers are likely to start their journey on Facebook or Twitter, do more research on your website on their computers, and finish the journey on your mobile app on their smartphones. You need to provide an omnichannel experience that tracks that journey across all devices and platforms with a seamless, holistic experience. You have to meet your customers where they’re at – you can’t afford to ignore any channel.
7. Take Full Advantage of Social Media
Social media is an essential part of the customer experience today. Customers expect to reach out to you via social media and get a quick response. They also use social media to spread the word about companies and products they like – and those with which they had bad experiences. You need to manage social media the same way you manage more traditional customer support.
8. Use CRM Software
All of these best practices are important for improving customer satisfaction and retention. You can perform many of these activities with customer relationship management (CRM) software, such as Salesforce. CRM software automates and centralizes a majority of your customer interactions which helps you focus on customer satisfaction throughout the entire sales process – and beyond.
Let Rainmaker Help You Improve Customer Satisfaction and Retention
When you want to use Salesforce CRM to improve customer satisfaction and retention, turn to Rainmaker. Our Salesforce experts will help you identify those factors that affect customer satisfaction and help you maximize the impact of those activities. We offer a wide variety of Salesforce Managed Services to help your company grow sales, improve customer service, and increase customer satisfaction and retention.
Contact Rainmaker today to learn more about improving customer satisfaction and retention!