Written
by Clint Fontanella @ClontFont
"How do I get more
customers?"
This age-old question has left
business owners scratching their heads for centuries. Until the Internet,
companies could only influence customers who walked through their doors.
Nowadays, businesses can reach customers anywhere and will do almost anything
to grow their customer base.
In addition to gaining new
customers, businesses are more focused on retaining existing ones as well.
That's because a 5% increase
in customer retention can lead to a 75% increase in customer lifetime value.
Customers who are familiar with your company are more likely to buy from you
again and will provide more value to your business over time.
However, even with modern
technology, business owners still struggle to find effective ways to acquire
new customers and retain them. If you want your business to be successful,
define the most effective way to optimize lead acquisition as well as customer retention.
In this post, we'll break down
what a customer base is and provide tips on how your company can grow and
retain its customer base.
What Is a Customer Base?
Your customer base is the group
of people who repeatedly buy your company's products or use your organization's
services. These customers frequently engage with your business and provide the
most financial value to your company. Depending on the industry, your customer
base can be a specific group of people or a target audience that's based on a
buyer persona.
It's important to identify your
customer base because these people are incredibly valuable to your business.
They buy your products the most and rely on your company to achieve their
goals. Recognizing these customers will help your marketing, sales, and customer
service teams build a productive relationship with your customer base.
Within your customer base is a
subset of customers who are referred to as your installed customer base. These
customers are at a specific point in the customer journey that
differentiates them from the rest of the people in your customer base.
Customer Base vs. Installed
Base
The installed base refers to
the group of customers within your customer base who are actively using your
products. Unlike the customer base, this group excludes people who have not
recently made a purchase or are not engaging with your business's offers.
Identifying these customers will help your company provide timely service that
will improve retention
For example, HubSpot's customer
base would be anyone who has purchased or used one of our free or premium tools.
However, HubSpot's installed based would only consist of the customers who are
currently using HubSpot products in their day-to-day workflow. By highlighting
this subsection of our customer base, we can personalize our marketing, sales,
and customer service offers to fit the specific needs of our active users.
Now that you're able to
identify your customer base and your installed base, you're probably wondering
how to make them bigger. Let's talk about how you can use customer service to
grow, develop, and retain your customer base.
How to Grow Your Customer Base
While marketing and sales teams
play a major role in attracting and engaging your customers, customer service
teams grow and retain your customer base by creating a delightful customer experience.
This effort keeps customers coming back for more, creating opportunities
for upselling and cross-selling. Below,
are a few tactics your customer service team can use to build and retain your
customer base.
1. Provide Excellent Customer
Service
This one may seem obvious, but
so many companies fail to deliver exceptional customer service. In fact, research shows
60% of consumers have stopped conducting business with a brand due to a poor
customer service experience. Customers expect perfection and even one misstep
by your company can result in churn.
If you want to provide
excellent customer service, engaging with needy or unhappy customers shouldn't
be viewed as a chore. Instead, your team should look at these customers as an
opportunity to grow your customer base. Respond to their requests immediately
and these customers will be more likely to purchase your products again because
they feel like your company is invested in their success. HubSpot Research even
shows 93% of customers are likely to make repeat purchases with companies who
have great customer service.
Customer service is also a
major influencer of customer retention. Studies reveal
67% of churn is preventable if a customer's issue is resolved during the first
service interaction. This puts more pressure on your customer service team to
fulfill the customer's request and do so in a timely manner.
2. Encourage Customer Advocacy
It can be difficult to attract
new customers to your business, especially when they've never heard of your
product or service. Customers are skeptical of advertisement and most won't be
swayed solely by your marketing efforts. Rather, they need to feel confident
your company is aligned with and invested in their goals.
One of the best ways to build
trust with new leads is to leverage your customer advocates.
These customers provide referrals and testimonials that improve your brand's
credibility in the eyes of potential customers. In fact, research shows
91% of consumers trust online reviews as much as they trust personal
recommendations. So, even if your customer advocates aren't directly referring
new leads, encouraging and publicizing their feedback will help make your
company appear more trustworthy.
3. Create Freemium Offers
Freemium offers are a great way
to grab the attention of potential leads. With a freemium offer, companies give
away something of value for free in exchange for customer information. The item
given away can be as simple as a PDF download or more interactive like a free
prototype software.
For example, HubSpot offers
a freemium version of
its marketing, sales, and customer service tools. Users don't have to pay to
use these tools, but they do have to supply an email address and create a
HubSpot account. This way, customers can get a taste of how useful HubSpot
tools can be for their business. Then, HubSpot can analyze the product usage
reports for these users and craft personalized customer service and sales
offers based on the tools they use most.
4. Adopt Customer Service Tools
As you start to accumulate more
customers, your customer service team must adapt to handle the increase in
customer demand. One option your business has is to hire more reps to field
service requests. This route is less desirable because it's expensive and
time-consuming to complete. Instead, you can use customer service tools to
expand the bandwidth of your customer service team without hiring new
employees.
One tool that you can integrate
into your customer service team is a help desk. A help
desk is a platform that hosts a variety of useful customer service tools, like
a knowledge base, a ticketing system,
and a shared inbox. These tools automatically organize and distribute incoming
service requests which makes it easier for reps to manage their open cases.
Instead of having to keep track of what they're working on, customer service
tools optimize your reps' workflow and free up time for them to take more cases
each day.
5. Collect Customer Feedback
If you're running out of ideas
for how to attract new customers, look at your customer feedback. Positive
feedback tells you what you're doing well and what you should boast about to
new leads. Negative feedback highlights where you need to improve and what
needs to change to increase customer retention. Keeping close tabs on your
customer feedback gives you a better idea of what your customer base values
most about your company.
Service feedback should be
collected after a support ticket is
closed or at the conclusion of a customer service interaction. You can also ask
customers for feedback after a purchase is made, as you might be curious about
the customer service efforts of your on-the-floor sales team.
There are many effective ways to
collect customer feedback. For example, provide customers with surveys after a
purchase or service interaction. NPS® surveys
are great because they provide your company with qualitative and quantitative
data about your customers. If your team is having trouble collecting responses,
check out some of these strategies you can use to obtain customer feedback.
6. Create a Customer Success Program.
Successful businesses
understand that a customer's value increases
as they buy from your company over time. If you can convince people to keep
coming back to your business, your customer base will continue to grow
consistently even if you're only acquiring a handful of customers each
month.
One effective customer
retention tool is a customer success program.
Customer success teams monitor individual accounts for roadblocks within the
customer's journey. If they anticipate friction, they can reach out to the
customer and help them navigate around the issue before it escalates into a
significant problem. This can make all the difference in preventing customer
churn, especially when you can remove pain points before customers even know
they exist.
7. Consider Web Accessibility.
If you have a website, it's
important to keep in mind that your brand is visible to anyone who has access
to the internet, but not everyone uses the internet in the same way. Some
people have limitations that require special features enabled on their
computers that help them access your site. If your site isn't compatible with
these programs, this audience can't reach your content, meaning you're missing
out on opportunities to convert potential leads.
Web accessibility can
open the door to a new ecommerce audience that your brand might not have
considered. For example, the graphic below shows us how much money was spent on
ecommerce in 2016. The red circle at the bottom indicates that nearly £12
billion in potential revenue was lost due to web accessibility issues.
If you're new to web
accessibility, reviewing the guidelines can
help you update your site so you can become accessible to all audiences. Not
only is this a smart move for your business, but it's a step you can take to
make your business more inclusive.
8. Optimize Your Customer
Loyalty Program.
Your customer loyalty program
is another useful tool for customer retention and acquisition. It can keep your
most loyal customers engaged with your brand's promotional offers and it can be
a competitive advantage when customers compare your company to a competitor in
your marketplace. In fact, 69% of
consumers say that loyalty programs influence their decision when considering a
new brand.
One way that you can optimize
your customer loyalty program is by adopting a tiered membership structure.
Tiers encourage customers to continue buying from your business and create a
sense of community as they progress through each level of loyalty. Each tier
should have its own special rewards and the rewards should increase in value as
customers move toward the highest tier. This is where your team can
estimate customer lifetime value and
determine how much a person should spend at your business before they're
considered to be one of your most loyal customers.
9. Gamify the Customer
Experience.
Gamification is the method of
adding playful elements to normal tasks or procedures to make the process more
enjoyable or engaging. Businesses are now using gamification as a way to
attract new users by including gamified elements that enhance their customer
experience. The idea is that customers will not only enjoy using the product,
but they will want to keep using it because it's similar to a hobby or
game.
In the example below, we can
see how HubSpot uses gamification for its Academy training courses.
These courses have pop-up quizzes and resources that make the training more
interactive and engaging. Once you pass a course, you receive a personalized
certificate and one of the exclusive badges below that you can proudly display
on your HubSpot account.
10. Personalize Customer
Onboarding.
Once someone completes a
purchase with your brand, the next few moments are critical to a customer's
journey. If they struggle with using the product or understanding
user-training, they may abandon your product altogether and seek a more
user-friendly alternative. In fact, according to Wyzowl, 55% of
consumers have returned a product because they didn't understand how to use
it.
Your customer onboarding
program can solve this problem by personalizing experiences for each individual
user. Rather than applying a one-size-fits-all approach, have your team reach
out to your customers and see if you can identify their specific needs and
goals. If you're offering a retail product, prominently display your customer
support options on your packaging so customers know exactly how to reach you if
they have a question. Making your customer service team accessible to your
customers is the key to providing reliable, real-time support.
For more ways to attract new
customers, read about how your business can improve customer acquisition.
Originally
published Aug 7, 2020 8:00:00 AM, updated August 07 2020
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