One of the most effective ways to grow your business is to retain your customers. This blog post shares secrets on maximizing profit, building a long-term relationship with your customers, developing trust, and receiving high amounts of referrals. Easy? Not really.
There are multiple ways to retain customers for service-based businesses, such as handymen, photographers, house helpers, babysitters, petsitter, cleaning, and others! In this article, we will share five proven strategies that can help retain your customers.
“The purpose of a business is to create a customer who creates customers.” – Shiv Singh
1. Deliver Your Services Fast!
Nothing can beat a professionally done job completed quickly.
73 percent of consumers surveyed in 2021 Customer Experience Trend report said that speedy service & effective customer support are key to a good customer experience.
On the iProWide mobile app, you can find clients that need service urgently. Simply go on a live map and see all current service requests. This is a great way to build your client base and deliver same-day services.
2. Gather feedback and do self-retrospectives.
Feedback is an essential part of improving your business. Customer feedback is one of the most valuable tools you have to increase customer retention and reduce attrition rates. If you want to know what needs to be done and how - ask your customers and listen to what they have to say.
Sometimes, it's hard to accept critics, so use technology to gather feedback where applicable. It will give you time between the suggestion & your reply. It could also be a great idea to ask your friends & family to reply to the customer feedback in some cases, as they have no emotions involved and can provide a more professional response.
Perform Self-Retrospective and answer three questions: "What Went Well?", "What Did Not Go Well?", and "What Can be Improved?". It's a good idea to document your responses and make this to be your routine activity to grow your business. Chin Up! We all make mistakes.
3. Offer a monthly service!
This one is gold! Let’s say you are providing cleaning services. Consider what your client needs weekly/bi-weekly, or monthly and offer your help with a small discount. Remember, retaining customers by providing deals and extra services is cheaper than acquiring new customers.
In our example, with the cleaning services, the Cleaning Pro may be hired to perform Spring Deep cleaning. Consider offering your client a basic residential house cleaning maintenance package - 6 monthly services at a bit lower price, or include free Ceiling and Wall Cleaning service to thank the customer for buying a package. Asking to pay in full could be risky, so be creative here. For example, offer complimentary service after 6 paid services in a row to encourage your customer to return. Or offer a lower price at each of your reoccurring services if done every month.
Be creative, offer a good deal, and retain your customers!
4. Interactive communication matters.
People like working with people - not robots!
Technology progresses fast, and we want to utilize it for our businesses. However, nothing will replace human interaction, especially if urgent help is required. Therefore, it's a good idea to answer your clients' phone calls or hire someone who can do it for you. To be successful, it needs to be done in a sufficient matter: quick and effective. Do not set up automated replies or chatbots, people are tired of staying on hold, don't lose your customers.
Having clients on a call is also a perfect chance to research what your clients need by asking them questions, negotiating prices, and brainstorming packages! Use each opportunity to your advantage.
5. Follow Up!
Everyone likes attention, and following up with your clients after completing services is a great way to build connections and strengthen your network.
You can stand up an email marketing campaign and send monthly emails to those who received your services. In the email, you can check if everything is okay since the service completion, inform about new promos or new services, and offer a discount.
Make it personal yet informative!
What is your secret for customer retention?
1. I offer discounts and deals
2. I follow up often
3. I ask for referrals
4. I use email marketing
You can vote for more than one answer.
The ideas mentioned above may be applied to different service-based businesses. Improving customer service and experience takes time, and it will take a few attempts before you find your perfect strategy. However, once you develop relationships with clients and grow trust - it will pay off by having new referrals and returning happy clients.
Cheers!
iProWide team
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