No business, irrespective of the sector they are classified under, can function without an adequate number of customers, let alone thrive.
Over the years, companies have come to understand and realize that they stand to gain far more by retaining existing customers.
So much so that, according to a study carried out by Gartner, a mere 5% increase in customer retention efforts could potentially increase a company’s profitability margins by 75%. That’s a lot!
While all of that sounds great, how does a company go about increasing ‘customer retention efforts by 5%’ in the first place? It is understood that customer retention is the methodology of getting a higher number of existing customers to remain loyal to a business or brand.
Businesses want one-time shoppers to purchase their products or services on a more frequent basis, and eventually lead them to become brand ambassadors. And this can only mean one thing. Potentially, a higher number of referrals! Be it friends, family, associates (or frenemies, if need be).
Businesses aren’t biased. If a factor such as this can contribute to helping those brands achieve their goals, that’s all that should matter! This applies to businesses of all kinds, SaaS or otherwise.
This article aims to bring to notice a fistful of customer retention tools that SaaS companies should look to include in their arsenal. These tools can aid in creating a more optimum business workflow process, resulting in an improved way you do business.
On this page
Establish Trust the Right Way
“It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it” – Warren Buffet.
Trust is a precious commodity. A customer’s trust is the bedrock upon which all transactions, past, future, or present, are based. Once lost, it can be nearly impossible to recover.
Here, enter Yotpo. This tool allows its users to generate photos, reviews, and Q&A’s. You can have these reviews and User-Generated Content (UGC) strategically planted in locations on your website that your customers are most likely to visit.
In doing so, it acts as a crucial form of brand reinforcement, which leads to higher sales and conversions. This tool is available in both ‘basic,’ as well as ‘premium’ packages.
Keep a Watchful Eye on Traffic Patterns
Want to know exactly what’s happening when visitors visit your website? There’s an easy and effective way to do so.
Tools such as Smartlook allow users to replay a prospect’s movements on a page, where they’re located, the amount of time a user spent on a particular page, information on pages that customers exited from, and the pages that visitors signed up for, etc. This tool has both a free and paid version that is made available to the masses.
It lends the user the ability to gauge a prospect’s user-experience of their website clearly and to list ways by which improvements can be made to increase potential customer retention rates. Smartlook is the ideal example of a great tool to include in your business marketing arsenal.
Understand your Customers with Reveal by Omniconvert
Prospects are unique in almost every possible way. All businesses aim to understand their target market truly. This is the best way to ensure that they’re able to market their product or services to the right individuals effectively. Customer Lifetime Value (CLV) can be gauged adequately by analyzing a prospect’s buying behaviour.
This tool will give your marketing strategies the essential fine-tuning they require growing your business user-base. It automatically segments customer groups, allowing professionals to reward these respective groups according to their assigned value.
Reveal’s implementation as a marketing tool in the SaaS industry can potentially facilitate a higher ROI owing to higher engagement levels.
Effectively Measure your Customer Retention Endeavour’s
There are numerous businesses, far and wide, that utilize Google Analytics, and for a good reason! This tool lends users a plethora of data that can be analyzed and whose interpretations can be implemented in that business’ respective marketing strategies for optimum results.
Apart from giving users access to information such as traffic sources and numbers, most visited pages, bounce rates, etc., it also gives you access to information such as most time spent on particular pages, the monetary value of your traffic, the time of day prospects are most active, etc.
Knowledge is power, and information made available by this tool will allow for a better understanding of your target market and subsequent restructuring of your organization’s processes to ensure maximum productivity.
Run A/B Testing with Optimizely
A/B tests are essential in figuring out the preferences of a potential customer, and whose outcomes can significantly contribute to forming a robust customer retention strategy for any business.
Optimizely is a tool that makes it easier to run these A/B tests. It allows you to run experiments on each and every hypothesis, function on your app, product, or website in a shorter time period. Optimizely let you know what options your targeted prospects find most useful to your product.
This information will allow you to make the right decisions when it comes to being able to offer the best possible product, and in doing so, setting your business up for future success.
To Conclude:
Many businesses often overlook customer retention, and the outcome of such decisions is usually negative. Tools such as those mentioned above have been specifically designed to assist you in achieving your business goals.
Although some are free and others may require you to subscribe to a service, the end result is that these tools can actually help your business revenue margins grow substantially. Individuals are likely to spend larger amounts and more frequently on businesses they develop a bond or a connection with.
By effectively keeping your finger on your prospects’ pulse, you stand to make a lasting impression and give your business the best possible shot at sustained success.
Image source: Freepik Premium
Guest author: Ajinkya D. Ghule is a social media enthusiast at Market.us, who found that blogging can be an excellent channel for sharing value with his readership. When not caught up in the rigmarole of everyday city life, you can find him running around with his dogs at the family farm.
