In most businesses, there is a huge importance placed on client retention; there is often a focus on attracting new clients to ensure continued growth. However, client acquisition is only part of the equation and client retention is an equally important aspect of business growth. Client retention enables businesses to engage clients and build a long-term relationship with them. This brings direct value to businesses in terms of customer lifetime value but also can have a flow-on effect in terms of creating a customer base of advocates.

So, what are some practical strategies can you put into place to ensure successful client retention?

Understand Client Needs

Before you can implement strategies to ensure ongoing client retention, you need to understand your current client base and how they fit within your brand. While developing and differentiating your brand is important, you need to place your customer base in the centre of this process. Market research will give you valuable insights into the needs and desires of your clients so your business can respond appropriately.

Develop Customer Surveys

Customer surveys help you to gain insight into the customer experience to maximise customer satisfaction over the long term. Surveys can be integrated into the customer experience by seeking feedback at various times, including at the time a product or service is delivered, at periodic intervals to gain a snapshot into customer experiences and expectations, or on a regular basis for ongoing monitoring.

Utilise Online Feedback

It’s important to embrace customer feedback from a number of different channels and the online community can provide your business with invaluable insights. Pay attention to how your customers are engaging with your business across social media, online forums, blog posts and email and take on board the feedback these channels provide. Your business can also use social media monitoring tools to gain further insights.

Analyse The Data

To promote client retention, you need to consider the bigger picture. This not only means analysing the information obtained from customers but also data associated with your industry in general. How are your competitors performing? What are the market trend reports showing? What are the relevant case studies? Are there current gaps in your industry? It’s important that this information can be summarised in a clear, concise manner so that you’re left with meaningful data that can direct clear decision making.

Create Innovative New Ideas

If you want to retain your customers into the future, you need to focus on creating new, innovative ideas for your business which will continue to capture the interest of your customer base. Embracing market research techniques using qualitative and quantitative approaches will allow you to screen, test and refine new and exciting concepts.

At Kantar Australia, we believe that customers come first and we have a focus on providing insights to optimise customer retention and engagement. Using evidence-based research techniques, we inspire big ideas for your business to deliver better outcomes. As one of Australia’s largest customised research companies, we develop long term partnerships with businesses, government agencies and departments so you can make decisions with confidence.

For customer research and services research, get in touch with Kantar Australia today to find out what we can offer your business.