Above all, you need to be there for your customers.
We all know what it’s like to be left hanging. Whether by a friend, a service or a business, it’s a frustrating and unpleasant experience. So it’s understandable that customers prefer to do business with companies they can rely on and who’ll respond in real time to any queries or concerns.
At tawk.to, we realize we’re all living in a fast-paced, interconnected world where immediacy is quickly becoming the norm. It’s safe to say your customers will move on to a competitor if they don’t get a response or if no one’s around to help them out.
So, why is customer retention so important, and what can you do about it?
Why is customer retention so important?
Savings. Customer retention is important in simple financial terms because the cost of acquiring new customers is much higher than retaining your existing customers. (It’s about five times higher, in fact!)
Data. Loyal customers raise your customer lifetime value (CLV) and give you a greater body of data for intelligent marketing. And getting to know more about your best customers helps you retain and nurture future relationships.
Word of mouth marketing. The customers you retain are much more likely to spread the word about your amazing business.
Feedback. Long-term customers are an important source of useful feedback and can help your business get better and better over time.
How availability affects customer retention
Do you want to hang out with the kind of person who ghosts you and never texts back? Didn’t think so. The same applies to business. Studies have shown that the main factors contributing to customer retention are service quality, satisfaction, trust and commitment.
All of these factors are improved by your availability. It’s like any relationship — we tend to value people we can rely on and trust. Those qualities are so often measured in terms of reliability and responsiveness.
Okay, I believe you. So how can my business improve its availability?
Live support. The best way to increase your business’ availability is by live support, allowing your customers to directly communicate with you, through real-time live chat. One of the most efficient ways to do this is via live chat software, a tool that allows you to monitor and chat with visitors on your website.
If your team isn’t big enough to handle the requirements of live chat, there is also the option of hiring chat agents, professional customer service agents who are able to answer chats for those businesses that aren’t able to quickly respond themselves. Other forms of customer support, such as one-on-one screenshares, phone calls, video calls and strategy calls, can also improve customer experience and increase availability.
Email ticketing. Having an efficient ticketing system enables your team members to follow up after chats, escalate concerns and create new help tickets from scratch.
What are the benefits of high customer service availability?
Loyalty. Studies have confirmed that high availability results in customer loyalty. You don’t want to lose customers to your competitors. So if you’re always available to help out, your customers are more likely to stick around.
Fast problem solving. Every business encounters issues and hiccups along the way — it’s just part of doing business. Being able to respond to these problems as swiftly as possible ensures that the issue is resolved before it impacts more customers.
Happy customers. This is what we all want. Simply put, people are happy when their needs are met and when a service exceeds their expectations. It’s frustrating and hurtful to be ignored or put off, or to feel like your concerns are unimportant or irrelevant. Think about your frame of mind when you’ve been sitting on the phone for an hour, listening to the repetitive drone of the hold music. Or when the email you sent off days ago still hasn’t received a response, despite getting that form email that assures you it’s being dealt with.
At the end of the day, our idea is pretty simple: if you’re there for your customers, they’ll be there for you, too. As with any relationship, the more you put into it, the more you get out of it. And tawk.to allows you to fully commit to your customers so they commit to you.
