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:

  1. 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.
  2. Improve your communication schedule. Design intentional touchpoints around drop points to keep customers connected and reassured.
  3. Use timed gifts. Surprise clients before or after a known drop point to build goodwill and perceived value.
  4. Deepen the relationship. Get personal. Share stories. Show your human side. Relationships beat transactions every time.
  5. Raise the switching costs. Make it less appealing for them to leave by integrating your service deeper into their workflows or routines.
  6. Embed yourself in your customer’s life. Be so useful and consistent they wouldn’t dream of switching.
  7. Use social proof. Share stories of long-term customers to reinforce the idea that staying is the norm.
  8. Negotiate longer contracts. Move from “at-will” agreements to 1-year contracts with auto-renewals, giving both sides more predictability.
  9. Upgrade your value. Delight them. Simplify their experience. Eliminate friction. Make staying with you feel like a no-brainer.
  10. 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.

If you’re ready to get your business out of your way—
the next step is to talk to one of our expert business coaches.

We’ll look at how your business is operating today, what’s getting in the way, and whether there’s a clear path forward.

You don’t need more ideas.

You don’t need to work harder.

You need to understand what’s actually keeping your business dependent on you—and what to do about it.

START WITH A FREE COACHING CALL

Or learn more about what business coaching can do for you

Woman participating in a virtual meeting, taking notes during a video conference on a laptop.

Not ready to talk yet? Start here.

Talking with one of our expert business coaches is the best way to figure out what’s actually holding your business back, but if you’re not ready for that, you can also access our free Business Growth Toolkit, which contains tools and frameworks we are actively using with our clients right now.

  • Learn the exact steps to take to reach passive ownership or selling the business for large multiples
  • Learn how to setup systems and internal controls to run the business for you – while it makes even more profit
  • Get the tools you need to stop the overwhelm and start a straight-forward path to successful scaling

No fluff. Just practical tools you can apply immediately.