Last editedFeb 20202 min read
For many businesses, winning a client is seen as the end goal, but this isn’t an approach that’s likely to lead to long-term success. In fact, you should view winning a client as the beginning. Once you’ve dotted the i’s and crossed the t’s, the important work really begins – convincing them to stick around. Fortunately, there are a broad range of client retention strategies that you can use to keep your clients satisfied with your performance, fostering a mutually beneficial, long-term relationship.
1. Work with the right clients
It might sound obvious, but choosing to work with the right clients is probably one of the most effective client retention strategies. Finding the perfect client can be a challenge, so try to pursue leads that are a good fit for your company. Ask yourself whether potential clients are organised, open to new ideas, and share your values. If they are, it could indicate that you’re likely to have a long and fruitful relationship.
2. Demonstrate value every chance you get
Conducting monthly reporting can be a great way to show your clients exactly what you have to offer. Send out reports on the first of the month to show off the best metrics from the past month. Depending on the product or service that you’re providing, you could showcase improvements in web traffic, incident response time, leads generated, and more. Bottom line: explaining your impact in real terms is a superb way to ensure that your clients understand the value of the service you provide.
3. Think about customer success
When you’re finetuning your client retention strategies, stop thinking so much about customer support (although that’s important too) and start thinking about customer success. Essentially, this means that you should be thinking proactively about how you can help your clients experience success with your product or service. One of the best ways to accomplish this is sending out surveys to see how satisfied your clients are with the service you provide. You could also analyse your clients’ customer health score (a metric designed to predict the likelihood of churn) and find solutions for clients whose scores aren’t in good standing.
4. Communicate all the time
Failing to communicate often enough is one of the key mistakes that many businesses make when establishing a relationship with clients. If anything, you should over communicate. For instance, if you’re trying to find effective personal training client retention strategies, why not reach out to inactive clients – as well as former clients who’ve cancelled their agreements – on a regular basis. Sending daily/weekly updates on work lets your clients know whether you’re on schedule, while you should also communicate with clients when there’s bad news. In addition, it’s important to communicate the way the client is most comfortable. Whether that’s through email, over Slack, or via a weekly call – when it comes to client retention, all communication is good communication.
5. Optimise the payments process
Optimising your payments system is one of the best – and easiest to implement – client retention strategies. An automated payments process that allows you to collect payments automatically on due dates can improve the value and quality of service that you’re already delivering to your clients. GoCardless enables your clients to pay by Direct Debit, ensuring that their payments are protected and requiring minimal admin on the client-side.
Conclusion
Put simply, keeping your existing clients is usually more profitable than pursuing new ones. Client retention strategies that actually work can help you keep your clients engaged and happy, inspiring loyalty that should see them stick with you for the long haul.
We can help
GoCardless helps you automate payment collection, cutting down on the amount of admin your team needs to deal with when chasing invoices. Find out how GoCardless can help you with ad hoc payments or recurring payments.
