Ever since the Coronavirus pandemic became a reality for individuals, their communities, and their countries, it became clear that people were going to be hurting…that lives were going to be changing…that the realities of the past were going to be very different from the current and near-term future realities.
When Our Customers Can’t…
Oftentimes when individuals are going through change or they’re hurting, they have a limited reservoir to pull from for others. Our customers have less energy or resources or money or time to give, so energy and resources and money and time are part of what they need.
When customers can’t give enough, it’s frustrating for them to be asked to give more. So, from a customer service and retention perspective, or even a marketing perspective, move to view today through the eyes of your customer even more.
They don’t want the sales pitches as often. They don’t want the target marketing as frequently. But that doesn’t mean you can’t have touch points with customers. That doesn’t mean you cannot reach out to customers.
In fact, we think you should reach out to them even a little bit more because your customers have needs beyond your product or your service. They have more personal needs for their health or their well-being or their experience of enjoying life simply as a human being.
…What We Can
Consider reaching out to customers a little bit more, but – much more importantly – reach out to them a little bit differently. Understand their world – their issues, needs, and goals – and determine what you could provide to them to help address those issues, needs, and goals.
For example, is there some information they don’t have access to that you could provide? Are there some complex issues that you could address for them with simplicity? Is there information or knowledge that is difficult to acquire, and you can create a 1-pager or a graphic or a simple link that they could click on to easily get the information they need?
Is there something they need in the near-term that you can provide in the near-term? Keep in mind that customer retention is based on the business premise that we want to maximize lifetime value of each client to our organization. So, these short-term and highly customer-focused touch points are being done to maintain and deepen the relationship for the long-term.
In other words, to maximize customer retention, you need to have a long-term focus.
The trees that live longest generally can weather the storms better if they have deeper roots. Plant the seeds of customer retention today by reaching out a little bit more with a lot of extra value in the information you provide to your customers.
After going to the same barber for more than a decade, I decided to leave. The customer experience went down, and the price went up. For my last several visits, I was the one who was driving the conversations – when I could get a word in edgewise between my barber’s preferred banter with his co-workers. The cuts were becoming less consistent, and his price kept inching up; the last price increase was just for his customers – they weren’t changing the posted pricing or the pricing of the other hair stylists, so that was equally confusing and troubling.
