Five Ways of Improving Client Retention

A staggering 68% of clients walk away from a business because they are unhappy with the services they have received. Lack of vision, lack of enthusiasm, and lack of promotion all play into poor client servicing. Here are five tips to make sure your clients stay happy and keep coming back. Companies tend to focus more on acquiring clients even though it can cost 7 times more. Now a marketing research has found that a business generates 80% profits from their 20% loyal clients. Thus you need to invest extra time for these clients.

1. Under-promise and over-deliver

Perhaps the most important key to retaining clients is ensuring that the clients’ expectations are managed well from the outset. The best way to guarantee that your clients keep coming back is to make sure they have a great experience. Also promise only what you can deliver to meet a client’s requirements. Going over-board and committing something even you know you cannot deliver will hurt your business’s bottom-line in the long-run. Although, if you exceed the client’s expectations then chances are the long-term relationship will become a life-long one. 

2.  Be available for your client anytime

It does not mean that you sacrifice your night’s sleep, but at times you have to walk an extra mile to fulfil the promises you have made to your clients. You should always be accessible to your clients especially if at all you are in a tricky situation. At that point of time it’s your responsibility to showcase how you are equally concerned about the situation, because negligence is what most client complaints are about.     

3.  Build relationships online

In the age of the Internet, social media, and smartphones, your clients are nearly always online, so you should have a presence online too. There are so many tools at your disposal to constantly communicate and engage with your clients online - Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, newsletter, Whatsapp (to name just some of the big players). You need to keep your clients constantly updated about any change in the process or any insight / trends about their industry.

4.  Becoming your client’s expert

Become their trusted advisor when it comes to your field of work, it directly translates into a stronger bond between you and your client. Do complete research about their industry, constantly keep tabs on any changes. Always alert your client regarding it, keep them engaged. The more you work on building that, the more the trust between the two of you will grow, and this trust quickly translates into a dependency for accurate information.

5.  Have a feedback system

There is no better way to improve your retention techniques than hearing from the clients themselves. A feedback system, such as a survey or talking with your loyal clients, will help you hear from them directly regarding how they felt about your business. This can offer a lot of great insight as to what would keep your clients coming back for more, which you can then put into effect and keep revising.

 Author: Sachin Lohade is a Chartered Accountant and works with Accounting Firms to improve practice and reduce costs. He can be reached out at sachin@corientbs.com or you can visit www.corientbs.co.uk