Ask The Business Coach: 10 Techniques to Combat Customer Attrition
You work so hard to bring in a new customer, yet so many businesses play passive when it comes to actively combatting attrition.
Think of how much you spend to attract a new customer. You have lead generation costs… sales costs… higher fulfillment costs, as generally a new customer needs a higher level of support than an experienced, established customer of yours.
Carl, one of my business coaching clients, spends between $500–$700 per new customer in his business. Kimberly, another client, spends roughly $300 to bring in a new customer.
What do you spend acquiring a new customer?
Clearly, retaining your customers matters.
Here are 10 tips to retain more of the customers you bring in so you can increase your profitability:
- Identify your key “drop points.” When do you regularly lose clients? Is it at the start? Perhaps you need a better onboarding process. Is it at the 90-day mark? Maybe your offering needs to stay fresh and engaging? Pinpointing drop points helps guide your strategy.
- Improve your communication schedule. Design intentional touchpoints around drop points to keep customers connected and reassured.
- Use timed gifts. Surprise clients before or after a known drop point to build goodwill and perceived value.
- Deepen the relationship. Get personal. Share stories. Show your human side. Relationships beat transactions every time.
- Raise the switching costs. Make it less appealing for them to leave by integrating your service deeper into their workflows or routines.
- Embed yourself in your customer’s life. Be so useful and consistent they wouldn’t dream of switching.
- Use social proof. Share stories of long-term customers to reinforce the idea that staying is the norm.
- Negotiate longer contracts. Move from “at-will” agreements to 1-year contracts with auto-renewals, giving both sides more predictability.
- Upgrade your value. Delight them. Simplify their experience. Eliminate friction. Make staying with you feel like a no-brainer.
- Pre-complete steps for them. Make everything easy. If they hate filling out forms, fill it out for them. If Amazon can preload Kindles, what can you pre-complete in your onboarding or service delivery?
As you can see, a bit of focused thought on retention can lead to happier clients and higher profits. Don’t just work hard to bring in customers — work smart to keep them.