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Customer Retention

shane • Jan 28, 2022

Customer relationships lead to customer retention

Customer Retention is one the most important, and most perplexing, issues that businesses face. There are three basic rules to customer retention:

1. Put the customer first. View their experience through the customer’s eyes. Every touchpoint: the advertisement, the store visit and follow up messaging, should be reviewed (and modified if needed) in order to give customers what they need to have great experiences.

2. Develop a relationship with them. Developing long lasting relationships with customers is like hosting an enjoyable party. Guests are greeted warmly by name, personal connections are made, and most people leave happy. Although it is impossible to deliver flawlessly every time,
a consistent and authentic experience are what customers want the most.

3. Follow up in personalized and meaningful ways. It is critical to collect and verify accurate customer information on each and every visit. This enables the development of a relationship by customizing communication to a specific person. Accurate collection at the store level
(name, address, email, vehicle information and proper OCS input) will yield a more personal relationship with customers.

Immediately post-visit, thank you emails accompanied by experience surveys provide an opportunity to turn around an unfavorable experience. A consistent email campaign with useful information helps maintain top of mind awareness. Reminder Mail helps customers stay current on their maintenance. And Lapsed Mail will help re-engage customers that are severely past due for a visit.

Maintaining a customer-centric focus and personalizing communication will directly manifest itself in having guests return to the party more often. That’s something everyone will enjoy.

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The Only Survey Question You Need to Ask Your Customers

By shane • 28 Jan, 2022

The Ultimate Question “On a scale of 0 to 10, how likely are you to recommend this company’s product or service to a friend or a colleague?” Pioneered in 2003 by Fred Reichheld, author of The Ultimate Question, the NPS is a customer loyalty metric that predicts the likelihood of a customer repurchasing from you or referring your company to a friend. Is this information actionable? We think so. Share with front line employees, set up benchmarks, target “promoters”, with friends & family offers, “passives” with discounts for additional services, etc. The ultimate objective is to convert customers who were less than happy or unimpressed into promoters who will then put the word out and allow for increased revenues and profits. These customer enthusiasts will buy more from the company they are satisfied with, they’ll need less customer service and will refer friends and relatives. Free positive publicity from a promoter helps improve overall customer satisfaction and could lead to higher company profits and growth. This question is a barometer for how customers feel about your business and rates on a scale the likelihood of recommending the company or brand to a friend or colleague. The score from the responses to this question constitutes the Net Promoter Score (NPS), which is an index that measures the willingness of customers to recommend a company’s products or services to others and/or take the time to say positive things about your company or brand. The score is used as a proxy for gauging the customer’s overall satisfaction with a company’s service, the customer’s loyalty to the brand, and can be a gauge to predict company growth. The Ostler Group offers a completely customizable online survey that incorporates the Net Promoter Score question, as well as access to a dedicated reporting dashboard for your stores.