How to stop losing customers and clients?

For any business start-up, acquiring new customers is a significant challenge. You need to spend a lot of money on marketing, branding, and advertising to draw customers to your business. Investing in each customer means spending countless hours on marketing. So, the loss of one customer means a loss of investment.

Most of us spend so much time and energy trying to gain new customers that we often forget to address those we already possess; resulting in lousy client retention. It is frustrating when you can’t retain your most valuable clients.

Generally, the cost of retaining the existing customer is much less than the cost required to gain a new customer. Hence it is always suggested to focus more on customer retention than on gaining new customers.

In this article, we will discuss why you’re losing your customer and what can you do to stop losing them.

Reasons for losing customers: Why are your customers declining?

After creating a customer, businesses often overlook them and forget about their responsibilities in the search for new customers. And such an attitude repels the customers from maintaining a long-term relationship with you. Following are the main reasons why you are losing your customers.

1. Poor Customer Service

The primary reason for losing customers in a business is often poor customer service. An excellent support team is essential to improve the customer experience.

Customers are spending more time online, and at home, so they’re looking for ways to connect with you. Thus, if you fail to accommodate customer needs, the perception that you lack empathy will harm your reputation. 

Customers see your support team as your business. Therefore, if you do not provide better customer service, you are very likely to lose your customers.

2. Failure to meet customer expectations

Failure to meet customer expectations is another big reason for losing customers.

When a customer, especially a new one, is provided with what they consider a bad product or bad service, they tend not to come back.

Everyone in the organization must understand that follow-up after the sale is not an option but a necessity.

Whenever you don’t hear back from your customer, please don’t assume they are happy. You might be missing the bigger picture here and you might not be hearing from them again.

Taking the time to make a phone call or asking for feedback, on the other hand, demonstrates that your care and your focus are not purely on securing sales.

Dissatisfied people are likely to share their disappointment on social media. Angry customers may post angry reviews that are visible to other prospective customers.

3. Failure to add value.

The customer doesn’t need to always choose the product with the lower prices. Prices are something the customers pay, and the value is something they get. So it’s fair to conclude that customers’ preference has nothing to do with price but with the value you provide. 

The lower price of your product might attract new customers, but it won’t help you retain them for a long time unless you provide them the value.

4. Inconsistency

Consistency is the key to success. It plays a vital role in both life and business. Brand consistency is essential to an organization’s success. An organization’s brand is more than just its logo and other visual elements. Customer perception across all platforms is your organization’s identity and reputation.

The experiences your customers have with your brand play an important role in building their trust in your business. To reinforce this trust and raise your brand’s profile with your customers, all forms of communication are crucial.

5. Outdated sales techniques

An aggressive sales approach is more likely to drive away customers than to lead to a positive outcome. If your business actively drives customers away with manipulative or coercive sales techniques, you are actively losing customers.

The burden of information is no longer solely on the salesperson since prospects can now obtain information about products from the internet. If a salesperson lets the prospect take the lead, they can better understand their level of knowledge and any concerns they still have.

How to stop losing customers & earn customer loyalty?

Having loyal clients and customers is crucial for any business. So to encourage loyalty amongst the customers and to stop losing them, you should work on the following:

1. Know your customer

You should have a good understanding of your customers if you want to be proactive in keeping them. You need to understand your customers better to increase your leads and business.

A solid customer relationship can be established if you understand what makes your customers tick, which will lead to good word-of-mouth marketing and increased sales. 

While identifying the customer’s preferences or purchase patterns can be challenging, you will most often need to conduct a thoughtful study to identify their psyches so that you can exceed them.

2. Provide added value

Your customers will feel more valued if you provide them with extra services. It is important to adhere to this principle in all aspects of the business, including customer service and marketing. It would be best to design customer policies that aim to make customer journeys trouble-free, delightful, and memorable. 

Your customer’s journey can be made more valuable by understanding their needs. The best way to truly understand them is to give them a platform to voice their concerns and opinions.

Having a complete view of your customers is the first step to improving your products and services. You can improve customer experience by giving your customers a variety of options for contacting you.

3. Reward loyal customers

Customers rewarded for their loyalty tend to make more repeated purchases, and studies prove this to be true. Offering discounts to your customers once they reach a certain spending level is another way to entice them. Customers will shop and save more if additional discounts are offered on top of already reduced prices.

The bonus you give does not need to be huge to make an impact and encourage referrals. You can make them feel appreciated by providing them with a discount or some freebies.

Your loyal customers will recommend you to all their friends and family when you reward them. It is always lovely to be asked what your customers think.

Your customers are your best resources when offering you information on new services, menu items, or marketing tactics. Ask loyal customers what they think by sending a survey. It would be best to clarify that you are asking them because they are so valuable.

4. Social Proof

When people are uncertain about what to do, they often turn to the previous actions of others for guidance. It is compelling for people to seek validation from the actions of others that are making the same choice or decision as to them.

People relate to stories, understand them, and stories entertain people. Having a compelling customer experience can be a powerful form of positive social proof that will increase engagement more than anything else. 

During the sales process, if your client sees that your other customers are unhappy, they are likely to become dissatisfied themselves. The situation can occur even if their service up to that point has been good. Thus, if a client has complained about you, try to get the conversation off the table as soon as possible.

5. Be realistic about your product or service.

Developing strong relationships with our customers is key to your success. To happen, you need to set realistic expectations about your product or service and demonstrate genuine empathy towards your customers. It is never a good idea to make promises you are unlikely to keep.

Whether it is your products or your support for a cause, you should always be upfront and honest.

Transparency in your practices, services, values, and policies is essential to set realistic expectations with customers. Your website, social media profiles, and company literature can help you communicate your business practices to your customers.

Companies that are true to themselves are more likely to attract customers.

Conclusion

Customers don’t stick around by accident. It takes a specific, value-driven approach to increase customer retention. Every company will inevitably lose a customer or two, but you should do everything in your power to maintain a healthy customer base.

Better customer experience always helps to gain their loyalty. In most cases, customers prefer to talk to a service provider via phone to get help with a problem. In this way, customers can feel confident that their concerns were correctly handled.

Cloud telephony can be the perfect solution for you to handle customer inquiries and improve the customer experience. KrispCall is one of the cloud telephony service providers with features like VoIP calling, sales dialer, sales automation, IVR, CRM integration, and many more that can help you handle customer queries effectively.

To find out more about KrispCall, don’t hesitate to get in touch with us today.

Bivek Khatiwada

Bivek Khatiwada is a Senior Analyst at KrispCall with a wealth of knowledge in VoIP, virtual phone systems, and cloud call centers. His expertise allows him to elucidate the benefits and advancements of modern communication technologies.