"How do I get more customers?"

This age-old question has left business owners scratching their heads for centuries. Until the Internet, companies could only influence customers who walked through their doors. Nowadays, businesses can reach customers anywhere and will do almost anything to grow their customer base.

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In addition to gaining new customers, businesses are more focused on retaining existing ones as well. That's because a5%increase in customer retention can lead to a 75% increase incustomer lifetime value。Customers who are familiar with your company are more likely to buy from you again and will provide more value to your business over time.

However, even with modern technology, business owners still struggle to find effective ways to acquire new customers and retain them. If you want your business to be successful, define the most effective way to optimize lead acquisition as well ascustomer retention

In this post, we'll break down what a customer base is and provide tips on how your company can grow and retain its customer base.

确定您的客户群很重要,因为这些人对您的业务非常有价值。他们最多购买您的产品,并依靠您的公司来实现目标。bob全站app认识这些客户将帮助您的营销,销售和客户服务团队与您的客户群建立富有成效的关系。

在您的客户群中,是客户群的一部分,这些客户被称为您已安装的客户群。这些客户处于特定时刻customer journeythat differentiates them from the rest of the people in your customer base.

For example, HubSpot's customer base would be anyone who has purchased or used one of ourfree or premium tools。However, HubSpot's installed based would only consist of the customers who are currently using HubSpot products in their day-to-day workflow. By highlighting this subsection of our customer base, we can personalize our marketing, sales, and customer service offers to fit the specific needs of our active users.

Now that you're able to identify your customer base and your installed base, you're probably wondering how to make them bigger. Let's talk about how you can use customer service to grow, develop, and retain your customer base.

How to Grow Your Customer Base

While marketing and sales teams play a major role in attracting and engaging your customers, customer service teams grow and retain your customer base by creating a delightfulcustomer experience。This effort keeps customers coming back for more, creating opportunities for畅销和交叉销售。Below, are a few tactics your customer service team can use to build and retain your customer base.

1. Provide Excellent Customer Service

这似乎很明显,但是许多公司未能提供出色的客户服务。实际上,researchshows 60% of consumers have stopped conducting business with a brand due to a poor customer service experience. Customers expect perfection and even one misstep by your company can result in churn.

如果你想提供优秀的客户服务,engaging with needy or unhappy customers shouldn't be viewed as a chore. Instead, your team should look at these customers as an opportunity to grow your customer base. Respond to their requests immediately and these customers will be more likely to purchase your products again because they feel like your company is invested in their success.HubSpot Researcheven shows 93% of customers are likely to make repeat purchases with companies who have great customer service.

Customer service is also a major influencer of customer retention.Studies如果在第一次服务互动过程中解决了客户的问题,则可以预防67%的流失。这给您的客户服务团队带来了更大的压力,要求满足客户的要求,并及时这样做。

2. Encourage Customer Advocacy

It can be difficult to attract new customers to your business, especially when they've never heard of your product or service. Customers are skeptical of advertisement and most won't be swayed solely by your marketing efforts. Rather, they need to feel confident your company is aligned with and invested in their goals.

One of the best ways to build trust with new leads is to leverage yourcustomer advocates。These customers provide referrals and testimonials that improve your brand's credibility in the eyes of potential customers. In fact,researchshows 91% of consumers trust online reviews as much as they trust personal recommendations. So, even if your customer advocates aren't directly referring new leads, encouraging and publicizing their feedback will help make your company appear more trustworthy.

3.创建免费增值优惠

Freemium offers are a great way to grab the attention of potential leads. With a freemium offer, companies give away something of value for free in exchange for customer information. The item given away can be as simple as a PDF download or more interactive like a free prototype software.

例如,HubSpot提供freemium versionof its marketing, sales, and customer service tools. Users don't have to pay to use these tools, but they do have to supply an email address and create a HubSpot account. This way, customers can get a taste of how useful HubSpot tools can be for their business. Then, HubSpot can analyze the product usage reports for these users and craft personalized customer service and sales offers based on the tools they use most.

4. Adopt Customer Service Tools

随着您开始积累更多的客户,您的客户服务团队必须适应以应对客户需求的增加。您的企业有一种选择是雇用更多代表来实地服务请求。这条路线不太理想,因为它昂贵且耗时。相反,您可以使用客户服务工具to expand the bandwidth of your customer service team without hiring new employees.

One tool that you can integrate into your customer service team is a帮助台。A help desk is a platform that hosts a variety of useful customer service tools, like a knowledge base, aticketing system, and a shared inbox. These tools automatically organize and distribute incoming service requests which makes it easier for reps to manage their open cases. Instead of having to keep track of what they're working on, customer service tools optimize your reps' workflow and free up time for them to take more cases each day.

5. Collect Customer Feedback

If you're running out of ideas for how to attract new customers, look at your customer feedback. Positive feedback tells you what you're doing well and what you should boast about to new leads. Negative feedback highlights where you need to improve and what needs to change to increase customer retention. Keeping close tabs on your customer feedback gives you a better idea of what your customer base values most about your company.

服务feedback should be collected after asupport ticketis closed or at the conclusion of a customer service interaction. You can also ask customers for feedback after a purchase is made, as you might be curious about the customer service efforts of your on-the-floor sales team.

There are many effective ways to collect customer feedback. For example, provide customers with surveys after a purchase or service interaction.NPS®surveys are great because they provide your company with qualitative and quantitative data about your customers. If your team is having trouble collecting responses, check out some of these strategies you can use toobtain customer feedback

6. Create a Customer Success Program.

Successful businesses understand that acustomer's value随着they buy from your company over time. If you can convince people to keep coming back to your business, your customer base will continue to grow consistently even if you're only acquiring a handful of customers each month.

一个有效的客户保留工具是客户成功计划。客户成功团队监视客户旅程中的障碍的个人帐户。如果他们预料到摩擦,他们可以与客户联系,并在问题升级为重大问题之前帮助他们围绕该问题导航。这可以在防止客户流失方面有所不同,尤其是当您可以在客户知道它们存在之前删除疼痛点时。

7. Consider Web Accessibility.

If you have a website, it's important to keep in mind that your brand is visible to anyone who has access to the internet, but not everyone uses the internet in the same way. Some people have limitations that require special features enabled on their computers that help them access your site. If your site isn't compatible with these programs, this audience can't reach your content, meaning you're missing out on opportunities to convert potential leads.

Web accessibility可以为您的品牌可能没有考虑的新电子商务受众打开大门。例如,下图显示了2016年在电子商务上花费了多少钱。底部的红色圆圈表明,由于网络可访问性问题,损失了近120亿英镑的潜在收入。

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If you're new to web accessibility, reviewing theguidelinescan help you update your site so you can become accessible to all audiences. Not only is this a smart move for your business, but it's a step you can take to make your business more inclusive.

8. Optimize Your Customer Loyalty Program.

Your customer loyalty program is another useful tool for customer retention and acquisition. It can keep your most loyal customers engaged with your brand's promotional offers and it can be a competitive advantage when customers compare your company to a competitor in your marketplace. In fact,69%of consumers say that loyalty programs influence their decision when considering a new brand.

One way that you can optimize your customer loyalty program is by adopting a tiered membership structure. Tiers encourage customers to continue buying from your business and create a sense of community as they progress through each level of loyalty. Each tier should have its own special rewards and the rewards should increase in value as customers move toward the highest tier. This is where your team can estimatecustomer lifetime value并确定一个人在您的业务中应花费多少,然后才被认为是您最忠实的客户之一。

9. Gamify the Customer Experience.

Gamification is the method of adding playful elements to normal tasks or procedures to make the process more enjoyable or engaging. Businesses are now using gamification as a way to attract new users by including gamified elements that enhance their customer experience. The idea is that customers will not only enjoy using the product, but they will want to keep using it because it's similar to a hobby or game.

In the example below, we can see how HubSpot uses gamification for itsAcademy training courses。这些课程具有弹出式测验和资源,使培训更具互动性和吸引力。bob体育苹果系统下载安装通过课程后,您将获得个性化证书和下方的独家徽章之一,您可以自豪地在HubSpot帐户上显示。

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10. Personalize Customer Onboarding.

Once someone completes a purchase with your brand, the next few moments are critical to a customer's journey. If they struggle with using the product or understanding user-training, they may abandon your product altogether and seek a more user-friendly alternative. In fact, according toWyzowl, 55% of consumers have returned a product because they didn't understand how to use it.

Your customer onboarding program can solve this problem by personalizing experiences for each individual user. Rather than applying a one-size-fits-all approach, have your team reach out to your customers and see if you can identify their specific needs and goals. If you're offering a retail product, prominently display your customer support options on your packaging so customers know exactly how to reach you if they have a question. Making your customer service team accessible to your customers is the key to providing reliable, real-time support.

For more ways to attract new customers, read about how your business canimprove customer acquisition.

Customer First Templates

 

Originally published Aug 7, 2020 8:00:00 AM, updated March 31 2021

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