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Why “No” is So Important - 9/15/26


The employee told the caller: “I don’t think that is possible.” The customer eventually hung up, and redialed to ask a different employee the same question. The employee responded to the customer: “That’s probably not the best way to do it.”  Then, the customer kept asking question after question, arguing Read more

It’s Not “You,” It’s “I” - 9/8/26


During a business writing course that I took years ago, the instructor had us write an e-mail.  I can’t recall if it was written to a co-worker or customer, but after writing this e-mail, she had us count every “I” and “You.”  We talked about how we need to Read more

It Shouldn’t Make a Difference, But… - 9/1/26


We have this conversation with lots of our sports clients, but the principles apply across all different industries.  Too many service representatives view a conversation with a customer as a transaction.  Just get him off the phone as quickly as possible.  The customer is Joe Public, not Joseph Pendergrass.  Read more

Use What the Customer Gives You - 8/25/26


Scenario #1: The customer sent an e-mail to the general inbox at the company.  The message noted that the customer needed to get a family member added to their account, but they couldn’t tell from the website how to do so. The next morning an employee opened up the e-mail, Read more

How Better Customer Service is Better for You - 8/18/26


Oftentimes, we have employees in training or workshops who really want to understand what’s in it for them to deliver better customer service.  How does the employee benefit from a better customer experience? Noted below are 5 different aspects of a great experience desired by the customer.  What if... The customer Read more

Manage New Customer Expectations - 8/11/26


The fan had never been to a motorsports event before, but they had been to concerts.  They had been to big conferences.  At those other events, they could park right next to the venue, many of the activities were indoors, and weather was a non-issue.  So, they were not Read more

Complement Empathy with Action - 8/4/26


A man falls into a hole, and he can’t get out.  He starts yelling for help, and a doctor walks by and looks down the hole.  The man in the hole yells to the doctor “Please help me.  I’ve fallen into this hole!”  And the doctor takes out a Read more

My 8-Minute Visit at the DMV- 7/28/26


I needed to get a Real ID, which in North Carolina facilitates airline travel and other identity verifications.  My wife suggested I go to one particular DMV that was a LONG way away from home, but where she had experienced great customer service.  I was lucky to find an Read more

When They Might Walk Out the Door…Permanently- 7/21/26


Have you ever had one of those conversations with the customer where they literally tell you they’re about to stop doing business with your company?  This is it.  They may bring up a competitor or found another way to get their need met, or they are just leaving. When we Read more

Transparency in Customer Service- 7/14/26


We’ve worked with a lot of clients in the local government sector, and many of these clients have Customer Service Standards and/or corporate values that include Transparency. Think about an old-fashioned transparency sheet, that malleable see-through page you put on an overhead projector.  You can see everything on one side Read more

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Customer Retention for Marketers

Posted on November 26, 2013 in Business Advice, World of Customer Service Please leave a comment

Many marketing articles, blogs, apps, other tech-related devices talk “customer retention” but are really talking their true love – “marketing.” They talk about how “marketing drives higher retention” and how relationship development is really “drip marketing.”

I’m not going to debate retention v. marketing because many people think only about sales and marketing, they don’t think in terms of customer service and developing relationships for the long-term.

So for any marketers out there, here’s some customer retention advice on mindset, strategies, key questions from the marketing perspective:

  • When considering retention, think of your customer as an individual person – not a group. Communicate with them as an individual, not as a market segment. If you’ve ever had a company for whom you’ve been a long-term customer market to you like you’re a prospect, that company abdicated their relationship with you for the ease of pushing products.
  • When developing strategies, focus on the concept of what you need to do to still have this customer in 1-2 years. In other words, what would you need to do – and when would you stage those actions – over the next 1-2 years? Companies who think short-term, often come across as doing things in their best interest, not in terms of what’s best for the customer.
  • When communicating with them, first know how they want you to communicate with them (not how you want to communicate with them). I’ve oftentimes received multiple sales telephone calls and just let the machine pickup, never to return their call. However, if they would have e-mailed me in a personal way, I’ll always respond, even if not interested at that time.
  • Communicate with them in their preferred frequency of communication. Some people will opt-out of e-mail campaigns coming at them 3-5 times per week (especially since they’re typically just sell-related), but they won’t opt-out if it’s once every 1-2 weeks and/or if there’s a mix of sales and more educational communications.
  • View a customer as a supplier of information to you – the information you need to retain and sell them. Don’t think “push” first; think “pull” first – spend more of your research strategy in getting to know them, asking questions and pulling information from them (especially at the start of the relationship) than pushing offers to them.
  • Base your decisions on their personal retention drivers; base your strategies on them as individuals. If you know why one customer will stay with you, address it. We conducted research for a client that noted that first-time customers who are likely to renew annual contracts are actually interested in upsell opportunities, but a high percentage of first-time customers are not likely to renew. You can’t do much with that general information, but since we knew which customers had which inclinations, we could recommend to whom to market and to whom to take a service recovery/retention approach.

If you’re a marketer, customer retention is for you – just know through what lens to look to create your marketing strategies.

Did you like this post? Here are other Retention-related posts: