How to Manage Your Customer Retention Strategy with Automation

As a small business owner, you know that customer retention is cheaper and more effective than customer acquisition. However, what you may not know is that it’s still a big effort for many businesses and can drain your resources if you don’t strategize correctly. So how do you retain the most customers with the least amount of effort and cost? Automation. 

Automation can help you get far more done with less effort which makes for happy customers and employees. Read on to learn about the magic of customer retention automation and eight ways you can automate your retention strategy. 

Elements of a Good Customer Retention Strategy

A good customer retention strategy doesn’t simply rest on having an incredible product. Think about the businesses you patronize and continue to go back to—the ones you can’t get enough of. What do they do or have? With some exceptions, they’ve probably built a long-lasting, personal relationship with you. This means that on top of having an addictive product, they likely personalize your experience every time, keep in touch, follow up, and deliver consistently amazing service. And they don’t let things fall through the cracks. 

That takes a lot of work. How do they make it look so easy? 

Automated customer retention takes care of everything so you don’t have to think about it. It prioritizes your existing customers by putting their needs first, and prioritizes you by decreasing the time and energy your customers have to spend on the phone. In this way, it allows you to optimize customer lifetime value while minimizing costs in a significant way. 

6 Ways to Automate Your Customer Retention Strategy

Automating customer retention can make or break your retention strategy. But it’s important to remember that not all types of automation work for you, and some can hamper rather than strengthen relationships. So, how can you automate your customer retention strategy effectively? Here are six ways you can set yourself (and your customers) up for consistent success and optimal customer satisfaction. 

1. Send Personalized Rewards

There’s nothing better than getting a coupon for a restaurant you go to often, a service you need, or a product you order frequently. Sending personalized rewards can increase customer retention because not only does it speak directly to customers’ needs (by anticipating their desires), but it also shows them that you know them, prioritize their business, and understand their history with you. Approximately 91% of consumers are more likely to buy from brands that have recommendations and offers that are relevant to them.

2. Send a Thank You After a Purchase

After every transaction with your customer, it’s time to say thanks. Following each purchase, send customers a personalized thank you for doing business with you. This can be an email, or better yet, a text. Make sure to always address customers by name, mention the product or service they purchased (if possible), and leave an open end that invites inquiry and commentary. The right template and automation software can help you get all these elements right.

3. Automate Data Collection and Organization 

As a customer yourself, you know that receiving personalized communications and recommendations from a business can make a world of difference. But predicting customer behavior can be tricky. If you automate your data collection and organization, you can make sure you hit the right note, every time. A primary way you can do this is by automating feedback surveys. 

Podium’s Feedback tool automatically sends two texts after you interact with a customer. The first asks your customer to rate you on a scale of 1-10. Based on this response, the second asks for clarification on what exactly made their experience negative or positive. This allows you to collect customer feedback effectively and improve from customer feedback and customer data that matters.

4. Show Customers Products They’ll Love

Showing customers products that they’ll love can go a long way in mitigating customer churn. Using automation, you can not only predict what products will resonate based on algorithms and purchase history, but also automatically send these recommendations along to the right people. This type of personalization, at the right times, keeps customers coming back. Consider sending recommendations around times when customers are most likely to buy. 

5. Abandoned Cart Reminders

The infamous abandoned cart. We’ve all been there. How do you get your customers to follow through with their transactions? Here are a few ideas. You can start with a text or email a few hours after the cart is left. Then a follow-up missive a few days later if the transaction still hasn’t gone through. If all else fails, a promotional discount can do just the trick. 

You should remind customers of what’s in their cart and offer a call to action. Pro Tip: A quarter of customers will abandon their cart if their preferred payment methods aren’t offered. Make sure your check-out system is convenient and simple to use so that there are no barriers to entry for customers. 

6. Send Renewal Reminders

More often than not, if you’re delivering great service and high-quality products that add value for your customers, they need to be reminded instead of convinced to renew. When sending a renewal reminder, make sure to emphasize the value your service or product has for the customer. Touch on your relationship, and perhaps even offer a promotion to sweeten the deal. Also, be sure to make the process as easy as possible. 

Start Automating Customer Retention with Podium

Want your customer retention efforts to go further? As you know, not all customer retention automation software is built equally. You only want the top automation tools to help you dominate your industry. The best automated customer retention platform will provide exceptional texting capabilities, hundreds of high-quality, easy-to-use templates, and keep all your messages, history, and data in the right places. Top platforms will also route incoming messages to the right people, display everything on a dashboard, and be user-friendly for every member of your company.

Podium is your one-stop-shop to offer a fully automated and personalized customer experience. Start a free trial today and see how Podium’s customer retention automation can lighten your employees’ workload, save your time and money, and help you retain your base–loyal customers and new customers—for life.