If you’re struggling to keep your existing customers from churning, then one of the most powerful things you can do is stop, listen, and learn. It sounds simple, but these are some of the most challenging principles to follow.
In this article, we’ll explore five ways to collect data and use it to your advantage.
With accelerating change and new trends driving the world forward, many businesses feel pressured to keep expanding their customer base or risk being left behind. However, there comes a point where too much growth can lead companies astray.
Instead of striking a balance between customer retention and acquisition, businesses end up falling into a cycle where new and loyal customers are lost to churn.
But when you take a moment to stop and listen, you might be surprised by what you find.
Collecting and analyzing customer data will help you gain valuable insights into patterns, trends, and opportunities you might have missed when analyzing your churn rate.
To decrease customer churn, data is your key to success.
| TLDR Key Takeaways |
| Instead of wasting time and money chasing everyone, focus your efforts on using the data you have to build relationships with customers who have already proven their loyalty. Tap into a data gold mine and listen to what your customers have to say. Learn how to take advantage of automation and all the data your marketing team has been collecting to help reduce churn. |
Now, this is a hard statement for many businesses to face because many believe that their product is useful for everyone (kind of like the Once-ler in the book “The Lorax”). But just because your product is practical for everyone doesn’t mean everyone needs it.
You built your product to address a specific pain point. Even though this problem may be relevant to a wide range of people, the product you created has been tailor-made to meet the needs of a particular group.
You most likely identified this group when you built buyer personas and completed your customer journey maps. This is a source of untapped data you probably haven’t evaluated since they were drafted.
So how are your target persona and customer journey maps related to customer retention?
Well, these are the customers you want to focus your customer retention efforts on. After all, they are supposed to be your “gold star” customers (the ones who always come back) because your product was designed for them.
And the best way to assess your customer personas is to compare them to the demographics of your current customers.
If they match, awesome! You just used the data you had on hand to identify which customers you need to build your retention strategy around.
If they don’t match or you haven’t really identified your ideal customer(s) yet, then you’ll still need to look at the demographics of who is actually buying your product or service. Look for similarities and create new groups which reflect your “gold star” customers.
Once you’ve targeted your core group and started maximizing retention efforts for them, you’ll be able to build a community with them that will ultimately attract more customers to your brand.
While we would love to tell you that you could just build a retention strategy around those brand loyalists and be done, we’d be lying.
Your new, active, at-risk, and even lost customers all need a retention strategy to make sure they can see why buying from your brand is worth it.
To do this, you’ll need to look at customer behavior metrics like purchase frequency, customer lifetime value, engagement levels, and more. You’ll also want to use demographic data to help you segment those customers even further.
By segmenting your customers and understanding their behavior, you can tailor your retention strategies to keep each segmented group engaged with your brand and reduce the likelihood of them leaving.
For example, new customers should get everything they need to make their first buying experience as easy as possible. They shouldn’t have to go searching for a thing. Everything they need for success, be it gentle reminders, a dedicated customer service rep, social proof, etc., should be given to them.
On the other hand, your loyal customers should get VIP treatment. If they love your brand, make sure you love them back with access to exclusive news, promotions, or 24/7 support.
At Patch, we segment customers into five main categories: New, Promising, Loyal, At-Risk, and Lost customers—each of which is broken down into additional subcategories (for example, Champions which is a subset of Loyal and At-Risk Promising).
This makes it easy to develop targeted strategies based on segmented customers and reduce churn.
You are sitting on a gold mine of data that will help you reduce churn, but you’re probably not asking for it or don’t know how to. After all, your customers are the only ones who can provide you with an authentic perspective on how your business operates.
If you’re not regularly collecting customer feedback and using it to improve your product or service, you risk losing them.
Luckily for you, listening to your customers can be done in a number of ways, such as:
Conducting surveys
Asking for direct feedback
Monitoring social media activity
Customer service interactions
Community forums
And with the introduction of new channels, there are even more ways for you to collect data and learn about customers churning.
One of the best ways to make customers feel like their voice matters is to use two-way messaging to communicate with your customers.
Unlike email or social media posts that get lost in the shuffle, two-way messaging opens a direct link between you and your customers, helping you build rapport and trust with them. They’ll appreciate your quick responses to their concerns.
After collecting all your data, use it to guide your decision-making and identify churn reduction opportunities for your business.
Automation is your best friend—trust us!
When you automate some of your data collection processes, it helps you free up time and resources that can be better spent on other areas of your business. Plus, you can utilize machine learning to keep track of crucial customer information.
There are several ways you can embrace automation and take your customer experience to the next level. The two areas that benefit the most from automation are customer journeys and overall customer communication.
Automated customer journeys provide a wealth of data that can be analyzed to gain insight into your customers’ behavior. Since you’ll be monitoring various touchpoints, you’ll be able to identify any trends throughout their journey.
You can then use this information to modify your processes, improve their journey, and set up additional triggers to improve communication—all of which can be automated.
Instead of spending precious time manually sending out emails, you can use automation to make sure every one of your customers gets the right message at the right time during their journey.
Plus, you can couple automated email and SMS campaigns with two-way communication to allow your customers to seamlessly switch over to a real representative if there’s a problem.
Just make sure you never stop collecting data and optimizing your automated campaigns, as this will help you analyze churn and find the most effective way to communicate with your customers.
Your customers are bombarded with content everywhere they turn, and it’s very easy for your business to get lost in the noise. To positively impact your customers while collecting their data, you need to make sure your content is personalized and relevant to them.
But there’s a fine line between a perfectly tailored experience and an intrusive one.
Your customers are more than willing to give you their data if it helps them have an incredible experience. In fact, 83% of consumers say they would be fine sharing personal information with brands so that personalized content can be created for them.
This is free data—use it to your advantage! Segment your audience with this information, and learn what kind of content they prefer. Then, create targeted content that speaks directly to their needs and interests.
A personalized experience makes customers more likely to remain loyal because they feel like you “get” them. Just make sure you don’t overstep your personalizations and abuse your access to their data, as it can make customers feel like you’re spying on them.
For example, some stores will send messages when a customer passes a store or advertise on social media once they visit a website. Customers find this type of behavior creepy.
Customer churn metrics can help businesses improve customer retention, and Patch can help you do it with data-driven actionable insights.
Our easy-to-use platform houses all of your customer retention needs in one location. We can help in collecting and analyzing customer churn data so you can identify areas where churn is happening and take steps to address it.
Our innovative analytics and user-friendly dashboards let you segment customers into groups according to their loyalty, frequency of purchase, or whatever other metric you want to look at.
We also provide a complete suite of tools to help you automate:
Customer Journeys
Email and SMS Campaigns
Review Requests
Referrals
Abandoned Carts Sequences
Loyalty & Rewards Widget
TextChat Widget
Auto-Replies
Much more…
And our platform is one of the few that lets you do all this and has a built-in customer loyalty program and two-way messaging capabilities.
So if you’re ready to start reducing churn, contact us today.