Every aspect of a business affects customer retention in one way or another. And one poor experience with anything may turn someone off from choosing you again — even if they’ve been loyal in the past. Communicating with customers is key to figuring out and resolving any issues.
Of course, as people continue to change and adjust their spending habits during COVID-19, you need to continue updating your customer retention plan and engagement strategy. By paying close attention to customer choices and needs, you put yourself in the best position to help them.
In this article you’ll read about 5 different signs in marketing and customer service that indicate it’s time to change the messages you send and when you’re sending them.
Poor Reviews and Feedback
When customers start leaving negative reviews or responding to requests for feedback with less-than-stellar comments, that’s a dead giveaway that things need to be adjusted.
As far as your communication is concerned, directly address all negative reviews and feedback. This process should be a huge part of the customer retention plan because it’s essential in saving customers.
This doesn’t mean you have to get into a huge public conversation on a review site, but you should publicly respond and then take the conversation elsewhere. If you know exactly who the customer is, it’s a great opportunity to send them a personal text with further questions.
But you shouldn’t have to wait for customers to come to you with feedback, whether negative or positive. Different teams should be regularly reaching out to them, such as after they sign a contract or make a purchase.
This continual outreach helps you build trust with your customers and shows them that you want to hear their thoughts. After some time, people will start contacting you with feedback and ideas totally unprompted.
Lack of Response to You
If you’re reaching out to customers and they aren’t responding, that messaging needs to change. Literally. Change what you’re saying and when those messages get sent. Especially if customers were previously very engaged and now they’re not, that’s an important sign to pay attention to.
Look for these types of issues in your outreach that dissuade responses:
– You stopped asking questions or questions were unclear.
– The tone of messages changed and the language feels off-putting.
– You’re sending too many messages and customers feel annoyed or overwhelmed.
– You started sending messages at different times of day.
Check out our 2-part series to figure out why people might not be responding to your texts and then learn how to fix your messages.
Lack of Outreach From Customers
If customers aren’t reaching out to you, that can be a problem too. You want customers to come to you for solutions to their problems. Whether that’s directly contacting a team member or visiting your site to find information, you must teach them how to get their questions answered.
So, make it clear how to contact you or the business in general. If it hasn’t been clearly communicated before that customers should text you at a specific number, now’s the time to change that. Regularly remind them that you’re open to hearing their questions, concerns, or ideas. Similarly, always remind them how to give feedback or leave reviews.
Regularly checking in with customers is the best and easiest way to teach by example. Show them that texting is the way for them to reach you by establishing an ongoing conversation.
Inaction on Marketing Promotions
If customers don’t take advantage of your sales or deals, especially if a sale was created just for current customers, that’s a sign that you messed up.
The marketing and sales teams then need to come together to determine what about the offer wasn’t enticing. Was it offered for too short of a time period? Were customers not made aware soon enough? Did the sale not offer a good enough deal? Was the targeting of the promotion off so you gave the wrong offer to the wrong customers?
Right now in tough financial times, your sales and deals need to be especially focused. You can’t expect the “normal” response to any promotion, even if in the past it’s been great. Carefully evaluate any promotion before launching and make sure your announcements and reminders take into account people’s current unique situations.
Decreasing or Nonexistent Referrals
People who love being your customer want others to be a customer too. If you were consistently getting a lot of referrals and then the numbers appear to drop off, you need to look at the customer experience and see what is causing dissatisfaction.
It might even be that you have a lot of new customers who aren’t aware that you take referrals or that you have a referral program. Maybe those who normally reach out to customers to request referrals have stopped doing so. You may simply need to send out texts educating customers on the program and/or requesting that they give referrals. Sometimes it really is that simple.
The easiest way to start conversations with customers
Actually having these conversations won’t always be easy, but starting them certainly can be. The Skipio platform is built for individuals and teams who want to have personalized conversations with every customer. It really is possible too!
Check out Skipio and explore the many different ways conversational business texting can change your relationships with customers.
