The world in 2021 has changed a lot. Needless to say, the changing times are now forcing us to start looking at things differently. Now more than ever people have understood the value of money in these difficult times. Consequently the businesses, especially the restaurant businesses around the world have been the worst hit and with the COVID-19 raging throughout the globe businesses are finding it increasingly difficult to sustain themselves.
The continuous downslide of the economy, steadily increasing prices and the pandemic related panic worldwide have made more and more businesses realize the value of retaining their Customers rather than striving for making new Customers. At this point in time the businesses are more concerned with keeping their businesses afloat.Hence, instead of wasting much time on trying to secure more Customers, many of the businesses are focusing more on Customer retention.
Following are five important tips that can help you in retaining more customers in 2021 and giving your business the much needed boost even in these grim times.
1.Knowing Your Customer: One of the best ways of retaining your Customers is by keeping a track of them. Tracking your Customer’s shopping behavior helps you in understanding about their preferences. Keep a track on their buying habits, the frequency of their shopping and a host of other such important information. The information thus collected can be analyzed to understand a lot about the Customers. The data will help you understand the likes and dislikes of an individual Customer. This knowledge can be used to give your Customers a customized shopping experience.
The knowledge of your Customer’s likes and dislikes can help you in promoting the items similar to the ones that are most frequently ordered by them. This process is commonly known as cross selling. It actually helps in increasing your sales even without any increase in the actual number of customers.
Similarly you can also upsell items by suggesting other items that a Customer might like, based on the items they order frequently. The upselling process helps you in increasing the overall revenue, without actually increasing the overall sales volume. This will not only help you in increasing your overall sales, but also will help you in increasing the overall customer satisfaction. It actually leads to Upselling and Cross Selling along with maintaining Customer relation and hence help you in retaining more Customers.
2. Making Services User Friendly: Everybody likes to be given special treatment. People in general like it when someone pays attention to them. It needless to say that even the Customers would also love the overall Ordering experience with your establishment if you pay attention to their needs. In fact it is all the more important to remember that a Customer in particular will always want to be valued right form the very beginning.
Ensuring Customer satisfaction is an organic way of Customer Retention. The Customers are much aware of the places where they can get their desired stuff and would not hesitate to look over to the other options if they feel unsatisfied with any service / services. There should not be any inconvenience at any point otherwise it can act as a deal breaker and given the amount of competition in today’s market letting go of even one single Customer is not really an option. There are way too many options that your Customer can turn to if not satisfied with your service.
The establishments must try to understand the Customer’s main focus. We must try to understand their preferences and provide them with only the items that suits their needs the best. The primary focus of a Customer is always on getting the most for every penny of their hard earned money that they are spending. Ensuring the best services and materials of topmost quality should thus be the prime focus. Making the Customer realize why a product is good for them, in what ways it can help them and how the products should be used so as to get the most benefit out of it, should be the prime concern of every business. Giving demo to the Customers. Showing them how to use the product for availing its maximum benefits. Providing a user manual and suggesting those services based on their preferences and other such small steps can go a long way in increasing the Customer’s overall satisfaction. It will also help in building and increasing the Customer’s overall trust on the company thereby retaining more Customers.
3. Focusing on the After Sales Service: One of the most important aspect for building a strong ever lasting relationship with the Customers. It is perhaps the most logical and the easiest way of ensuring Customer satisfaction. Sadly this aspect remains the most neglected in case of most of the businesses. Most businesses fail to understand the importance of the after sales services and hence they tend to overlook it. The businesses must focus on providing the Customers with the best possible after Sales services. The small steps like following up with the Customer post Sale and helping them with various kinds of after sales services to resolve their issues at the earliest really helps in boosting the Customer’s trust on the company. The more a Customer trusts a company the lesser are the chances of them looking at other companies for availing services. It actually helps in retaining more Customers.
4.Customer Loyalty Programs: Recent studies have shown that it’s at least six times more expensive for businesses to acquire a new Customer than retaining the existing ones. Investing in Customer loyalty programs is one of the best way of growing your business while ensuring Customer retention. One of the best ways of Retaining existing Customers is by creating personalized loyalty programs for them. Pampering your loyal Customers with that occasional offers or reward points. Providing shopping benefits like cash backs and lucky draws and other such lucrative offers can definitely help in strengthening the Customer’s bond with the company. In fact with the advent of internet and the social media sites it has become all the more easily to conduct these Customer loyalty programs. You don’t have to pay even a penny to conduct these programs. Utilize the social media platforms to take your Customer loyalty programs far and wide.
5.Customer Feedback: When it comes to retaining Customers the overall Customer satisfaction is one of the most important factor. Sadly this section remains grossly unattended to by most of the businesses. Taking care of the very minute details of the Customers can really give you the edge over your competitors. In fact this is perhaps the easiest way to ensure satisfied Customers. All you need to do is just keep yourself open to the Customer’s complaints and accepting their complaints without any delay. The Customer’s problems must never go unattended. Alternatively, you can also reach out to the Customers via the social media sites. You can provide the Customers with a dedicated mail ID or helpline number to let them get in touch with the Customer care representatives whenever they need to raise any issues. Ensuring speedy redressal of all the customer issues and taking their feedbacks on their recent purchases etc., can really help you in gaining the Customer’s trust. The more a Customer trusts your brand the more likely it is for them to stick to your establishment. Hence this method is a very useful method of retaining your Customers as well as for building yourself a brand name.
