We know as well as anyone how busy your days are as a contractor. Between doing quotes, doing the work for the customer and daily business activities there just isn’t enough time in the day. Among your responsibilities you also need a steady stream of customers, so you also need to be constantly generating leads and retaining as many customers as possible. A big piece of the puzzle in customer retention is online marketing and understanding how to use that to your advantage. However, this may not be in line with your skill set so you need to have a solid understanding of what your online marketing should include before deciding if it’s something you should do yourself or get it done for you. There are several tactics you can practice to increase retention. They include, but are not limited to:
1. Keep track of the important things.
Modern technology and sales systems mean tracking data regarding clients is not only simple; it’s necessary to understanding your customers. While small- to mid-size businesses may not have the resources for involved analytics, simply capturing email addresses and tracking certain client notes gleaned from sales calls, customer scheduling or on-site when doing the job that can allow you to better tailor future marketing and communications to those customers.
A note here: you can come right out and ask your clients for comments and feedback that will add to your customer information about when they may want to do the job, new service lines you are offering, if they may have another project in the future, when you should follow up with them on the quote and quality of the work you performed. Implement customer surveys and garner feedback often. Having client data at your fingertips is paramount for what we’ll touch on next.
2. Personalize the client experience.
As mentioned, it’s imperative that each touchpoint in your marketing, sales, onboarding, and service processes encountered by the client is considered when you set out to increase retention. From the very first query form a potential customer fills out to the final payment, the client experience has to be something to write home about or at least not be ugly.
Having data on your clients can lay the groundwork for personalizing the customer experience. This could mean individualized recommendations on what to purchase because they want a specific brand, color or style, relevant special offers for services in their interest like rebates or green products, or simple things like including both the names of the husband and wife or homeowners that make the experience unique to them.
3. Be the expert.
Establishing yourself or your team as the go-to in case of anything — not just the things that come up with a specific project — will inherently add loyalty in the relationship. Efficiency is imperative to this equation, as it allows you to better cater to your clients. For example, having all content optimized for mobile devices allows you to have materials at the ready from anywhere, at any time. This aids your accessibility as an expert — when a current client engages with you, your response will be quick and informed as you will have your other services, products or materials right on your mobile device.
4. Incentive campaigns.
Consider incentivizing your clients in a way that promotes referrals and retention. A few examples:
- Gift cards or discounts for referring a friend or family member to your site or service. It takes time and money to execute, but your cost per lead will be more rewarding than any other advertising, so take advantage of what you’ve already built.
- Refer a friend; receive a discount on your next Double whammy: retain + refer.
- Raffle for a company gift card where customers get an entry for each person they refer to you or online review they submit.
- Need to get reviews going in the first place? Provide an incentive for your customers to head online and write up a review. The yellow pages are hardly the place to go anymore; reviews are your best friend when Google rules the search world. There are also firms that will help you get reviews like Guild Quality or Nearby Now
5. Creating additional touchpoints.
Where else can you positively impact the customer relationship? Here are a few ideas to get you started:
- Gather customer emails. Build your list and use it for some type of ongoing communication. It’s one of the most affordable and most effective ways to keep in touch with your customers.
- Send either digital or physical holiday and birthday cards.
- Offer friendly reminders of projects they wanted to do but didn’t originally have the budget for.
- Announce new staff or interesting project progress that might intrigue them.
It’s important to get creative when you’re in the business of cultivating and nurturing customer relationships. As you’ve seen, the payoff is worth the effort in customer retention and referrals.
