Creating the right customer experience

5. Provide personalized customer experiences

It’s time to get personal. Offering a personalized customer experience tells a customer that you really know them and care about their goals and needs. Share content that’s highly relevant to each customer. That might be a series of blogs that’ll help them get better at their jobs, or a discussion thread that answers one of their questions. Tailored communications increase the likelihood that they engage with your brand because they will discover something helpful and interesting to them. And as they engage more and more, their loyalty will grow and encourage them to stay.

Regular touchpoints will remind your customers about the value your products and services give them. This could be as simple as a monthly newsletter offering tips and tricks, a customer event to showcase the latest products and features, or an online community where people can engage in their own time with content and networking opportunities. 

The community has helped us to drive 90% customer retention and net growth across our customer base!

Laura Bineviciute, Head of Content and Community at Data Leaders

6. Resolve customer complaints quickly

Customer service is a huge driver of retention… and churn with 82% of consumers stating they’ll stop doing business with a brand if they aren’t satisfied with its customer service. Look at your support processes and tools, and ask your existing customers if they’re up to scratch. Investing in something as straightforward as an FAQs page, a knowledge base, or a customer support community can help to boost your service and help customers resolve issues quickly. 

7. Connect people to others

As humans, we’re built for connection. Brands can tap into this intrinsic need to meet like-minded people by setting up trusted, private spaces for customers to network. This might take the form of an exclusive customer event or it could be a brand-owned, online community. And if someone sees that your brand provides them with a space to build their professional network and reputation, it makes it a lot harder to wave goodbye to you come renewal time. 

Moreover, your customers may end up recommending more of your products and services to other customers. Word of mouth is a powerful marketing tool and it’s unlocked when you have many customer advocates. 

It has enabled us to offer a digital space where we may be able to build an engaged community 365/24/7, going beyond our annual two-day event.

The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)

8. Upsell and cross-sell to them

The more people buy into your brand, the more invested they become and the more likely they are to stay and recommend your products to others. Selling more products or add-ons to your customers is only possible when customer satisfaction is high (and that relies on everything I’ve listed above!). Yet, when you retain more customers, you’ll find that they will buy from you more often and spend more, compared to new customers. In fact, 65% of the average company’s revenue comes from its existing customers. Why? Retained customers already know about your company and aren’t wondering if they are making a good purchase decision. 

Go to Part 3