Engaging with your customer means retaining customer satisfaction

Retaining customer satisfaction is more complex today than it was before. Less than a decade ago, “being in business” meant that you actively sold to and engaged with customers on a daily basis. Although this is still true today, “engaging with customers” goes a little bit deeper. Engaging with customers involves actively selling, engaging, sharing and listening.

Much like any relationship—whether personal or professional—if you don’t work at it, then it will fail. If businesses don’t actively engage with customers, then they risk harming their relationships with customers or even losing customers altogether. This also makes attracting new customers harder. After all, “The flower only grows if you water it.”

Focus on improving customer relation and experience-they go hand in hand

So, how do you make sure that you retain customer satisfaction and attract new customers? The customer relationship and experience go hand in hand; therefore, should focus on improving both. This means you might have to be adaptable and flexible, ensuring that you provide the customer with the best possible experience that is tailored specifically to his or her needs.

Although gaining new customers is important for growing your business. You have to build solid relationships with your existing customers first. It is also more cost-effective than gaining new customers. In fact, according to Marketing Metrics, businesses have a 60 to 70 per cent chance of selling to an existing customer whereas selling to a new customer is only five to 20 per cent.

All in all, it helps to have a customer retention strategy in place.

Here are some ways to retain customer satisfaction:

1. Stay interested

It’s incredibly important to show customers that you are interested in meeting their needs. Remember, a sale doesn’t end after the customer walks out the door. Customer interaction is ongoing; it’s about establishing and building a long-term relationship.

Customers want to work with a service provider or a business that truly listens and cares about their needs. They don’t want to feel like a number or a pocketbook. So, it isn’t a surprise to learn that 70 percent of buying experiences are based on how the customer feels and how he or she is treated. Customers want to interact with a brand that takes an active understanding and interest in their needs and listens to those needs. This is a huge step in the right direction to ensuring solid customer relationships and building new ones.

2. Ensure an excellent experience

Today, customers are all about the personalized experience. Customers are no longer interested in the “one and done” sale. They want a solid interaction with each and every business, whether that is walking into a physical location, making a purchase online or engaging with a brand via social media. All of these transactions go into experience.

One approach to doing this is to periodically check in with each customer to see how they are doing and to see if they are still happy with their product and/ or service. You can also create a checklist of items or questions to ask a customer during your conversations with them, such as the following:

1. Are you happy with the product and/ or service we provided you?
2. Is it helping you reach your goals?
3. Is there anything we can do better?

Gathering feedback from your customers is extremely valuable. Sometimes making a simple improvement to a product or service can increase profits by five to 95 per cent! This is one-way businesses can show customers that they value them and care just as much today as they did during their first interaction. It is also a great proactive (there’s that word again!) strategy to use to begin attracting new customers.

3. Get engaged

It’s important to remember that customers aren’t likely to speak up if they have a problem with a service or product. They are more likely to walk away and never come back, which is why staying engaged with customers is so important.

In fact, according to Lee Resource for every one customer complaint you receive, there are 26 other unhappy customers who have remained silent. Furthermore, 96 percent of unhappy customers don’t complain, however, 91 per cent of those will simply leave and never come back. (Check out our blogpost “Catch customers while you can” for more info on this shocking insight)

If you are proactive in getting in touch with customers and making a solid attempt to improve their experience, then customers are apt to remain loyal and make future purchases. This can be achieved by implementing different surveys such as Customer Feedback Forms or post-purchase evaluations (with/without Net Promoter Score)

Another way to engage with your customers on a daily basis is via social media. Social media provides businesses and brands with an opportunity to build an online community of customers, leads, and influencers, which helps new customers build trust with a brand.

Customer satisfaction begins with company culture

In summary, taking a proactive approach to customer satisfaction is the best way to retain existing customers as well as attract new customers. Social media is just one example of a medium that businesses can leverage, however, ensuring customer satisfaction really begins with the culture and personality of the business. Check out our CSAT survey tool for more insights, or get started with our VoC software or customer survey software.

All in all, if a business takes time for customers, then customers are more likely to keep your business at the forefront of their minds. This really highlights the importance of engagement in customer relationships and experiences.