Customer retention management is the process of managing the customer experience and customer satisfaction efforts within your organization, with the ultimate goal of keeping the customers you acquire for as long as possible.
There are 4 key elements of customer retention management and they are:
Customer acquisition
Whilst it may at first seem odd to have customer acquisition (winning new customers) as a part of the customer retention management process, it’s critical to have it here at the start. Any organization’s customer retention efforts must begin by trying to win the right customers in the first place. Targeting and onboarding the wrong customers is a frighteningly easy mistake to make. But these customers are square pegs in round holes and will quickly defect, sending your acquisition and customer support costs skyrocketing.
Customer retention
Whilst customer acquisition is important, so many businesses stop there and fail to actively try and retain the customers they win. Customer retention is basically the efforts your organization makes to profitably retain the customers you attract. Not all customers will necessarily be profitable for a business, and it’s important to look at customers that can (and should) be grown, and customers that should be fired! It’s also the case that satisfied customers who’ve bought from you in the long term are generally happier to provide references and act to refer you on to their colleagues.
Customer lifecycle management
CLM requires you to look at the different touchpoints you have with your customers (even those touchpoints that happen before a potential customer buys) and work out how to raise those experiences well above the industry standard. This is an important part of customer retention management, as you are broadening the program beyond just stopping customers leaving, and instead you are creating a complete ecosystem which they actively want to join, and stay a part of.
Customer development and growth
Customer development is focused around how you can grow the amount your existing customers are spending with you. Key account marketing, cross and up sell marketing activities all fall into this category.
The importance of customer retention is highly significant in growing your business, read on to learn about customer retention rates, and how to make use of the data.
