The world that we live in today is full of multitude of choices. Humans are no longer bound to make particular decisions on what they need to buy. In fact there are more choices than buyers, which comes as an extremely big challenge for businesses to retain their existing customer base, while finding ways to grow it. Today’s customer is presented with discounts and competitive prices, tempting him to move to other brands that offer similar or even in some cases better features.
While businessmen also have a lot of opportunities that they can use to improve their business activities, there are some areas that are particularly challenging. Sales of any business would only grow if it is capable of retaining its existing customer base. And then build upon it.
With the digitalization of business transactions, mobile apps have become a norm for all online businesses as ideal means to reach out to every customer on a personal level. Just like the quality of your mobile app is directly correlated to the adeptness of its designer, the success factor of any mobile app lies ultimately lies in the hand of the consumer. Since customer satisfaction is the ultimate goal of any business entity, and it is the only factor that translates into customer retention. Once a happy customer continues to buy from you, he acts as your most powerful brand ambassador.
Though designing an impressive app that gets customers excited and ultimately loyal to the brand, seems like a straightforward plan, today’s challenging environment is making this process extremely cumbersome. While customer acquisition comes with heavy costs, retaining existing customers is another uphill task that marketers and app designers are faced with.
So what should be the ideal strategy to retain clients? The place to begin from is the app itself.
While technology has empowered customers to make better, informed choices, it has also given businesses different perks such as monitoring and rewarding customers who stick with you through thick and thin. Majority of customers today prefer to shop through their mobiles, be it fitness apparel or planning a holiday. This opens up a great opportunity for businesses to retain their customers by providing them with an excellent app that can enrich their shopping experience. This also enables the brand to stay connected to the customer once he has made the purchase, which acts as a foundation for building brand loyalty and a positive image amongst customers. So basically your well-designed mobile app is capable of satisfying, retaining and making your customers loyal if it adheres to certain criteria.
Mobile apps sole purpose is to make the customers shopping experience easy, seamless and rich. If you mobile is catering to these needs, then the app becomes the essential tool to provide customer satisfaction and ultimately help business derive customer retention. This process can be made valuable by giving a special ode to your loyal customers, granting them exclusive access to new arrivals, discounts on their future purchases or even redeemable coupons. Some businesses make the grave mistake of taking existing customers lightly while directing all their efforts towards attracting new ones. This can play havoc with your business, because a business only grows when it first retains its existing customer base and attracts new customers on top of it.
There are different sources through which your customer ultimately downloads your app. It could be an online advert, a peer’s suggestion or organic search results. Once your customer has decided to keep the app, it is up to you to keep his interest intact by updating the app from time to time. You can make him feel compelled to keep using the app with the help of new features or compelling content. While providing updates, be mindful about the time when you release them. If you flood your customer with constant updates that are too difficult for him to track, it is possible that your customer may find your app annoying him, making him discontinue using it. And if you take too long to come up with a convincing update, users might consider your app outdated and delete it. Therefore, it is very important that you release timely updates that will grip your customers’ attention making them stay loyal to your app and brand.
The reason why your customers download your app is because they look for convenience. While making purchases through your app, customers expect an unhindered and uncluttered shopping experience. If your app is providing your customers with a hassle-free enriched experience, then your customers will stick to your app for long. Therefore, while designing or updating an app, the use of ease should not be compromised upon so that customers’ basic need to download the app is catered to which is feasibility.
You can politely try to convince your customers to make a particular choice. However, if you are adamant to reach out to your customer and give updates about which they don’t want to know at all, you are not honoring your customer’s freedom of choice. While Push notifications maybe a gentle reminder to your customers, consistent spamming may actually act as a turn off for your customers.
There would be certain times when your customers would face some sort of problem while using your app. And the first person they can think to turn to would be their own brand. And if you are not available to resolve the query you can turn satisfied customers into disgruntled ones, pushing them you away from your business. This can be any business’ worst nightmare and obviously you wouldn’t want to drive your customers away yourself.
Extend support to your customers 24X7 so that you can improve customer engagement as well as turn your customers into lifelong acquaintances.
To make the process even more sophisticated you can work on providing in-app feedback forms so that you can have a detailed view of what areas need to be worked on. This is also a very effective way to persuade your existing clients to stay connected with you while you acquire new ones.
A happy customer is a like a magnet that attracts many new customers for your business. You can create the hype about your app by giving away rewards to users who refer the app to most friends. This would definitely sizzle things up for your app, getting your more customers while making existing ones satisfied and happy.
A key element in keeping your customers loyal to your brand is to develop customer relationships with them. Though notifications can help you stay connected, customers look for a more real feel when it comes to building relationships that last for years. Here is where social media comes in handy. It can act as bridge between your customers and the brand developing strong social ties can turn into long-lasting brand loyalty. Active participation on behalf of your customers calls for rewards and you can simply watch your mobile app take life of its on. Your purpose shouldn’t be solely to design a mobile app that sells, it should be to develop a wide app community with real conversations and strong bonds.
You can further enrich your customers’ experience by incorporating geolocators into your app that would provide customized features based on the buyers’ current location. It would inform the customer about a discount or even a bonus to loyal customers when they are near the retail outlet. This feature works well across all industries especially with hotels and restaurant and forms basis of customer connectivity and retention.
You need to think out of the box so that your app doesn’t end up in a folder and then soon into trash bin. Consider designing a game that keeps your customers entertained for some time. And so that your customers aren’t bored after using it repeatedly you can use some game dynamics. Provide your customers with challenges that stimulate the mind and then design a reward system to appreciate exceptional efforts.
Regardless of how much time, energy and resources you put in to design a flawless app for your customers, there would be some who would deem it inappropriate, faulty or downright useless. Rather than trying to convince these customers with details about other features of your app, it is best to work on removing their complaints. Though you cannot make everyone happy, you can at least make disgruntled customers listened to, if not happy. Once you cater to the complaints, customer retention would automatically increase. This would also provide you with an opportunity to work on removing the loopholes in your app and provide an exceptional experience to all your customers.