Wooing customers to increase retention and upsell opportunities
Customers are the life blood of any business. Without them, there would be no business at all. Yet, I see so many companies putting a heightened focus on acquiring new customers that the existing ones get left behind. How can companies ensure that their customers stay happy, renewing, and buying more? Because waiting until their service is up for renewal to reach out will quickly lose you trust points. Let’s explore the fundamentals.
First, this blog, written a few weeks ago, talks about being customer-first but from a pre-customer acquisition perspective. Today we’ll talk about customer care post-acquisition.
#1 - Make a great first impression
Once a customer is signed, the first thing you must do is send each of the individuals who were part of the sale an onboarding email designed for their specific role. This includes the influencer, the decision maker, and the user(s). This email must include:
A message specific to the role they played in the deal. Don’t use the same email for each person. Creating templates that can be customized based on those roles simplifies this process going forward so that crafting one isn’t a net new activity each time. In your CRM system, you should have a field that identifies their respective roles.
Use an automation system to distribute them. This could your marketing automation tool, CRM, or customer support platform. It doesn’t matter where it comes from as long as you can 1) send it quickly; 2) track that it was sent, opened, clicked on, etc. 3) becomes part of the customers’ ongoing record in those platforms you’ll use to support them.
A list of resources available to them with links to portals or relevant sites (knowledgebase, customer support, Slack channel), phone numbers, and email addresses.
Request to schedule a recurring check-in meeting. The first 90 days will be critical to new customers, so you want to make sure you’re meeting regularly to remove any barriers, address any issues before they become problems, and create a sense of trust.
#2 - Hold regularly scheduled office hours
Most companies will have a service team that handles technical issues, but this is a reactive measure. Customers who use this channel are already having some sort of issue with the product or service.
Create a proactive environment with a recurring, interactive call that allows customers to ask questions, learn about new functionality, or hear from other users. While you will want to have regular touchpoints with your customers on a one-to-one basis (see below), these office hours are intended to be open to all of your customers. You can call them “Tips and Tricks,” “Office Hours,” “Power Hour,” or whatever fits your fancy.
To make the most of these, I suggest the following:
Ask for feedback: Send a quick questionnaire out to your customers once a month to ask for their requests on what should be covered in these sessions. This will not only help them feel like they have some skin in the game, but will also help you continue to reinforce your brand with your users (i.e. creating affinity).
Be consistent: Hold the webinars on the same day of the week, time of the day, and at the same cadence, such as every two weeks or every three weeks.
Record and share: Not every customer will be able to attend every session live. That’s just a fact of the world we live in today, where people expect to be able to watch things on-demand. So, live up their expectation and make sure you are offering them the on-demand content in a dedicated place that they can easily access. This can be either a customer portal or password protected webpage. Because these sessions will likely have more sensitive information than a prospect-targeted webinar, you’ll want to make sure they are behind some sort of access wall. It’ll also feel more exclusive to your customers.
#3 - Continue the courtship
One of the biggest mistakes I see companies make is treating their customers like they have no other option and that loyalty is guaranteed. This is not the case. Customers have more choice today than they ever have and brand loyalty is not as prevalent as it once was.
Companies must continue to woo their customers. Just like a plant will die without water, sunlight, and periodic plant food, a customer will also whither on the vine if they aren’t getting continued love. Lack of love will lead to lack of renewals. So, what does customer wooing look like?
Meeting on a regular basis to check in: Focus on the check-in portion in these calls, making sure they’re okay and finding success, not just a way to pitch more products or features.
Delivering content that enhances their knowledge: Ensure it’s not just product-specific material.
Hold a user conference: These can be regional to maximize attendance. Focus on knowledge sharing as well as roadmap discussions and social engagements.
Invite them to a customer advisory board: Customers who advise the companies they buy from feel like they are contributing, which increases affinity.
#4 - Reduce friction at every engagement point
Companies that constantly seek to improve the customer experience by reducing friction and increasing the level of customer service they provide will win out in the end. Here are some examples:
If you have a customer portal, make sure it’s easy to access and navigate. Don’t make the customer hunt for what they need. You should be tracking telemetry, which can help you determine the most used functionality and elevate it so the customer finds right away.
Provide the materials you’d gate for prospects free to your customers. Requiring existing customers to re-enter in their personal information to download an asset is infuriating. They’ve already handed over their cash. Give them the asset.
If you have a newsletter that you send out to customers, make sure you include the resource links and contact information that you sent in your initial onboarding email (from Tip #1). Make it super easy for them to find that information and use it, don’t assume they’ve bookmarked it. No one has time to go hunting for a website link when they’re in a bind.
Wrap up
Customers need constant care and feeding. Companies that neglect their customers or deprioritize providing a top-notch customer experience will not succeed. Or, they’ll slowly see attrition as customer get wise and find competitors that treat them better.
Stay in touch with your customers on a regular basis - listen to them, help them, treat them with the utmost respect and consideration. Don’t wait until their subscription renewal is on the horizon because that behavior is transparent to them and you’ll lose points in the trust department.
It’s hard to leave a company that treats you well.
Have questions about this blog or my viewpoint? Then please contact me at rosa@rosalear.com or fill out a contact me form here.
