You need to keep updating your customer strategies to ensure that they are happy with your products & services. Everything from customer marketing with campaigns based on shopper feedback to improving your omnichannel strategy can help you boost customer retention and increase trust and loyalty.
Really listen to the customer
How many times have you dealt with a Contact Centre where the customer service repetitive (CSR) has not really listened to your conversation or has interjected whilst you have been talking?
From my perspective it happens all too often and is really an unpleasant experience.
Many Contact Centres have strong KPI targets set around average call lengths, which in turn can lead to the CSR’s rushing through calls and not taking the time out to really listen and understand the customers’ needs.
Occasions where the CSR is not really understanding the problem can be easily resolved by the proven process of the CSR repeating the callers concerns/issue or questions as part of the usual interaction.
This is called active listening and is the old story of getting your CSR’s to slow down, listen, repeat, confirm and respond!
Of course the other golden rules is to always train and encourage your CSR’s to never talk over a caller whilst they are dealing with them!
Speak the customer’s language
As part of the gap analysis it was discovered that the Contact Centre CSR’s were doing the customers an injustice when selling products and servicing their needs, which was driving customer attrition.
It is not recommended to bombard the customers with too much technical information, and in-house terminology. This meant the customers became confused and embarrassed during the call because they did not really understand what the CSR’s were talking about.
The golden rule in these cases is to make sure your CSR’s are talking to your customers in their own terms so that the customer becomes empowered and understands what is being talked about.
The Company acknowledged this issue and agreed to implement our suggested initiative of “talking in real terms”.
Once in place the Company realised a direct decrease of 1.5% in customer attrition from this initiative alone, a winning formula in anyone’s books!
Servicing your customer beyond expectations
Do you currently exceed your customer’s service expectations?
Using Service Level Agreements (SLA’s) and providing good old fashioned customer service are powerful tools to help retain customers.
SLA’s can be measured against a number of key attributes in any Contact Centre, including, Speed of answer, Issue resolution times and service provision.
All of these areas are where customer’s expectations can readily be exceeded by not only the measurement of success but also the provision of best practice service.
Imagine calling a company, not having to wait in queue to be answered, being served by a CSR that engaged with you, understood your needs, provided great service, sold you products that were applicable to you, and generated solutions to problems; and the list goes on.
Wouldn’t that be a great experience every time you transacted with an organization like this!
After all a happy customer is more likely to bring in free referral business, generate good word-of-mouth publicity and remain loyal for longer.
Offering solutions to stop them leaving
Reducing customer attrition through the use of tools such as “Save initiatives” is an exciting subject that could have its own article dedicated to it.
However I will give you a quick overview of a couple of scenarios that have successfully aided businesses which I have supported.
Firstly there are two types of save initiatives: proactive and reactive.
Proactive initiatives are undertaken before a customer has left your business and are orchestrated as a reaction to subtle triggers that the customer is displaying that lead you believe he/she may be looking to move away from your business. For example, a customer that has recently met the average lifetime value of your customer base could be considered in risk of leaving so you may wish to acknowledge that customer for their custom.
Reactive initiatives are driven as a direct result of the customer advising that they are leaving your business. For example, it could be an offer of a discount if they retain their business with your company.
Save initiatives can be as complex or as simple as you want or need them to be, but the implementation of any save initiative within a business and particularly via its Contact Centre operations is a positive step in helping reduce customer attrition.
Best practice organisations have comprehensive Save initiatives with dedicated budgets and empower their CSR’s to be able to offer services/products/discounts as needed to retain customers.
Companies that are starting out on Save initiative journey can start with simple things like sending a voucher to customers that are reaching the customer average live time value or have not transacted with them for an extended period of time.