Any business sales teams are focused on one single goal to sell and sell again. Their eye is always on company revenue. So, there is no surprise that most of the sales team members will always be focused on customer acquisition. Primarily, customer acquisition is all about convincing someone to purchase your product or service. No doubt that customer acquisition is the most effective and quickest way to generate revenue.
More
customers equate to more revenue. However, even though this approach is ideal
to meet the sales figures and revenue targets, this is not the best strategy on
a long term basis. To ensure long-lasting growth in terms of sales and revenue,
along with the acquisition of customers, businesses should focus on retaining
those customers as well.
Whey Customer Retention Is Crucial?
Customer
retention is a strategic approach to convert the one-time customer to a
lifelong loyal customer. This approach covers everything a business can do to
prevent a customer from leaving your product or service to be acquired by
another business offering the same products and services. While the sales teams
focus on retaining customers, it has a two-way advantage as by cutting down the
cost alongside to revenue growth.
The
sales experts say that new customer acquisition is about seven times costlier
than retaining an existing customer. For many organizations, it is sensible to
focus on the retention of the existing customers than spending largely into
acquisition. This can not only lower the cost but also can make your brand more
reputable and acceptable. As per Huify, the possibility of converting the
first-time customer to a repeated customer is about 60 to 70% percent compared to
the scope of 10 to 20% conversion rate of a new lead.
So,
for the sales teams now, the most critical source revenue overtime is from the
existing customers. However, it’s not so easy to sell to them, but may not be
as difficult as convincing the new ones to buy a product service if you are
offering something of quality, worth their expectations. So, in all sense,
existing customers are opportunity goldmines, and as your relationship with
them deepens, you get more leads and new customers, and this network slowly
grows.
Key To Success In Customer Retention
As we know, trust is the basement of any successful customer relationship. If a customer buys a product or service from you, then they are making the statement that they trust you and the commitments you made in terms of the quality of what you are offering. Your role is to deliver the promise and honor the trust.
In order to ensure customer trust, the sales team should approach them with empathy from the moment the engagement begins. Each interaction from random cold calling to on-boarding of the customer should be considered as an opportunity to respond to the actual customer needs and ensure the best experience to them with your brand, product, or service. For this, as Flosum.com suggests, one must work to create a warm experience to the customers throughout the journey consistently. The very moment a customer reaches to the point of the sales funnel, it is not an indication that the sales teams work is over, but that is the point where the actual engagement begins.
By considering and prioritizing the experiences and preferences of your customers who are already in, you can earn their trust constantly and eventually make them your loyal, long-term customers. This is the game of customer retention, which is all about maintaining trust and keeping a customer for long. Salesforce is one of the best available tools to make this possible.
The Role Of Salesforce In Customer Retention
Corporate sales teams can now use Salesforce strategically to improvise their customer retention activities successfully. Salesforce helps to centralize the customer data, personalize customer communications, track every interaction, and constantly engage with the active and inactive customers with the help of many integrated customer service tools. Let’s explore
1) Centralizing The Data
As we know, data is the most valuable asset for any organization, which is considered as the lifeblood of any company. It also helps to keep the system rolling and also empower the sales to take the right action at the right time. For sales, it is critical to have the most reliable and updated customer data to hit the goals, which is also critical in terms of maintaining good customer relationships.
Using Salesforce, it is possible for the sales executives to get all customer data at a centralized location from where they can initiate the communications too. This comprehensive platform includes email features, VOIP calling options, etc., which you can integrate effectively with Salesforce to generate automated emails, save the voice mails, make notes and tie all these with each customer records. So, at any given time, you know the latest updates and history of customer interactions to engage with them effectively.
2) Personalizing Customer Communication
Using Salesforce, it is possible for sales and customer retention teams to create personalize emails, landing pages, forms, etc. Say, for example, you can create personalized emails by displaying customer name at the salutation line through automation. You can also create customized emails based on the customer’s position in the sales funnel to make the communication more engaging.
In fact, the mailing is just one among many ways enabled by Salesforce to personalize your customer experience. You may also try to customize your website pages or landing pages to make those appealing to the customers. Say, for example, if you can share a landing page with a special limited period offer, it can be instantly created and published using Salesforce tools.
3) Tracking Interactions With Customers
With
the help of Salesforce tools, salespeople can keep track of what your customers
are doing real-time and strategize your approach. You can see it when a
customer abandons a shopping cart, which will help you make some adjustment on
the web pages. You can get more insights into customer behavior, which you can
effectively turn into customer engagement through proper strategies. The data
through Salesforce will help you to meaningfully engage with all types of
customers at the right time to convert.
Along with these,
Salesforce can also be effectively used to engage with the inactive customers
and also try to pursue them effectively over time and ultimately convert. By
effectively classifying your customers and tracking their activities closely
through instant reports and insights, you can ensure better customer retention,
which ultimately gives you better results and revenue.
