Customer Retention Challenges & Solutions: Part 1

Did you know that existing customers are more likely to try new products and services and spend an average of 31% more than new customers? Customers who are loyal and engaged with your product and brand are willing to pay for more capabilities if they bring value to the customers' current workflow. 

Now more than ever customer retention is crucial but there are challenges associated with retaining customers. But where there are challenges, there are solutions! Over the next two weeks, we will discuss eight customer retention challenges and how to overcome them. 

Customer Care & Outreach

Challenge #1: Poor customer care. 

Have you ever had a negative experience with the customer care team at a company? How did that negative experience make you feel? Did the experience affect your opinion of the company and its brand? I’ve had a handful of experiences that I didn’t enjoy. The response time to my emails took too long, I never received a callback, and I can remember various times I didn’t get the answer to my actual inquiry.

A study by The Northridge Group Inc found that most consumers decide to leave an organization and move on to a competitor after just one bad experience. Just one! It’s extremely important to empower your team with the resources needed to address problems and inquiries promptly and with professionalism. 

Challenge #2: Poor outreach experience. 

The average office worker receives 121 emails every day. I’ll be the first to confess that I archive many incoming emails without even reading over them, and most of them are from organizations that I signed up to receive a newsletter or updates on product launches. 

It’s all about time and prioritization. You have to make sure communication with customers is targeted and meaningful to them. If the email doesn’t look important, it will probably get deleted or archived. Also, try to anticipate your customers' needs. Have a few of your customers been waiting for a new feature to launch? If so, then send all relevant content related to the feature release to those customers. You will provide them with the necessary resources and address potential questions before customers even have a chance to ask. Be proactive!

Customer Engagement & Knowledge Base

Challenge #3: Poor customer engagement. 

Disengaged users can be a retention challenge because those users may not be convinced they are getting a lot of value out of your product. They may not even understand how using your product or service can help them reach their goals faster and go above and beyond those goals. As a result, there is a greater churn risk. 

The best method to help disengaged customers become engaged is to ask clarifying questions about what they need and why they bought your product in the first place. Use email campaigns, phone calls, and even social media advertisements to get their attention. When they do respond, make sure to take those opportunities to ask those clarifying questions. 

Challenge #4: Poor knowledge base. 

I would consider this to be a tie with the number one challenge – poor customer care. Before purchasing a product, I browse the company website and see if there is an organized Help Center that is easy to navigate and find answers to common questions.

Not every person wants to reach out to the customer care team or their Account Team right away for help, especially because it takes up time that can be used on other tasks. You don’t want your customers to have difficulty finding assistance, especially with questions that have relatively easy answers. 

It’s important for your team to invest in a robust knowledge base for your customers. If you aren’t sure what to put in the knowledge base, reach out to your customer care and sales teams to get input on the most frequently asked questions & challenges customers face and document recommended solutions for reference. Keep in mind customers who want to dive deep into your product, and create relevant courses that customers can engage with to learn more about specific features available and get the most value out of your product. 

Recap & What’s Next

Let’s review the key points from the first four challenges discussed today:

• Empower your customer care team, as well as your Account Team (Customer Success Managers and Account Managers), with the resources needed to provide superior customer care.
• Make sure your outreach is targeted and provides value.
• Ask clarifying questions to help unengaged users become more engaged.
• Create a robust knowledge base with answers to common questions from customers. 

Next week, we will review the next four challenges in the journey of Customer Retention. If you want to get a head start, take a look at this article. 

What are common challenges that your team faces in terms of retention? Let us know in the comments what they are and how you or your team proactively address them!