4 Tips for Preventing Customer Churn

Want to keep your customer’s long term? It’s time to invest in preventing customer churn.

Customer churn is the percentage of customers you lose in a set period. This is calculated by dividing the number of customers lost by the total number of customers. For example, if you have 400 customers one month and 380 the next, your customer churn rate is 5%.

There is no ‘good’ customer churn rate – it depends on your industry and your business. To help you keep your customers long term, here are four tips for preventing customer churn.

The best way to keep your customer churn rate low is to provide benefits that extend beyond the scope of your business’s products and services. While you may believe the best benefits are financial (like sales and discounts) non-financial benefits provide immeasurable value long term.

If you want to provide more than just a product, establish a social community around your business.

A social community is a space your customers can freely interact with you and other customers. Great communities are open spaces for customers to share tips, wins, and losses in a fun environment filled with like-minded people.

Want to start your own social community? Here are some great ideas to get you started.

• Maintain a discord server your community can use.
• Start a private Facebook where customers can ask questions.
• Run a forum connected to your website.
• Set up a subreddit for customers to contribute images, text posts, and comment anonymously.

For a great example of building a social community around your business, check out the subreddit run by G2 eSports. The r/G2eSports subreddit acts as a second website but run by its twenty-two thousand members.

Of course, your social community is going to need close moderation. As you can’t be online 24/7, your customer service team should ensure all posts are monitored and strict community conduct rules are enforced.

Keep your customers engaged by playing to your strengths: your love for your industry. No matter how new your business is, you’ve got a wealth of industry-information to share with customers. Give back, and turn yourself into a resource for your customers.

A great resource is a supply of support, information, and aid available 24/7 to your customers. You can do this on two mediums: your website and your social media accounts. On either platform, include a wide selection of informational posts related to your business and industry. This includes:

• Picture tutorials.
• Blog posts.
• How-to guides for your service.
• Industry news.
• Updates on your service.
• Insights into your business.
• Advertisements for your latest services and product features.

These posts serve two primary purposes: they establish a relationship between you and your customersand they serve as top-of-the-funnel (TOFU) content that drives your customers into your sales funnel.

When establishing yourself as a resource, you’ll need to ensure you are appealing to your customers by providing a great user experience. To do this, ensure you set goals for what you want to achieve before you start. For great goal-setting, use the SMART goal method. That means goals that are

• Specific.
• Measurable.
• Achievable.
• Realistic.
• Time-bound.

Turning your social media and website into a resource may seem tricky, but with a little effort, you’ll be surprised at the results. If you’re looking for inspiration to get you started, the Instagram account run by Cooler eSports is a great example of a customer-focused resource.

Great customer service will always help you decrease your customer churn rate. Customer service is your chance to form a direct relationship with your customers, as well as create an impression they’ll remember.

To keep your customers around long term, ensure your customer experience meets the five standards for award-winning customer service.

1. Customer-focused.
2. Professional.
3. Helpful.
4. Personal.
5. Reliable.

When it comes to delivering good customer service you’ll need to ensure you deliver personalized customer support. To ensure you can meet the needs of all customers, implement support across the four essential customer mediums:

• Email
• Live chat
• Phone
• Social media

For each medium, ensure you answer all communication within 1 – 2 business days, as studies show customers feel most valued when their needs are addressed quickly. Experts also recommend you work to continuously improve the standard of your service by collecting feedback that evaluates your customer service.

To use great marketing, you must understand your customers. No matter your business or industry, you’ll have four types of customers:

• Loyal customers, who frequently engage or purchase.
• Semi-loyal customers, who sometimes engage or purchase.
• Latent customers, who occasionally engage or purchase.
• Non-customers, who are aware of you but do not engage.

Great marketing will keep loyal customers engaged, turn semi-loyal and latest customers into loyal customers, and will turn non-customers into customers.

Naturally, the best marketing is customer-based. To do this, build a parasocial relationship into your marketing. A parasocial relationship is a one-sided relationship your customers form with you through marketing and media. The stronger this relationship is, the more loyal your customers will feel. To leverage this relationship, ensure you use consistent branding to build your business a ‘character’.

For parasocial-marketing, experts recommend using two mediums:

1. Email marketing

Email marketing has an average engagement rate of around 15 – 25%, which makes it a great way to reach your most loyal and active customers. Email marketing is a great way to share discounts, product updates and keep your customers aware of the latest industry regulations.

Great email marketing sends out emails that are less than 150 words, including:

• A catchy (not spammy) title.
• A short, story-like snippet of information.
• A hook that leads your customers to your website or into your sales funnel.

2. Social media marketing

Social media is a great way for your customers to engage with you on equal footing. It’s also a great place to share discounts, product-exclusives, and industry news.

Finally, the best way to keep your customers engaged is to use a pay per head platform that delivers a great customer experience.

Realbookies pay per head software is the best in the industry and will keep your customers happy and coming back for more.

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