How to Retain More Customers in 2020

Our contemporary business landscape is certainly interesting. Thanks in part to advances in technology, there are more opportunities for entrepreneurs than ever before. Our digital age actively helps make business accessible, from providing tools to connect with customers around the world, to widespread availability of free business education and advice. 

That said, business owners are faced with many of the same challenges they’ve always had. Primarily, how to attract the buying public into their space — whether physical or digital. Also, once you’ve brought buyers on-board, how do you keep them coming back?

 

As we move into a new decade, we can expect technology to have a greater impact on business, but how does this affect customer retention? Are there steps entrepreneurs can take to improve loyalty? What are the customers of 2020 looking for in their go-to services?

 

Utilizing Tech

Whether your business has a brick-and-mortar location or is purely online, it is a given that your customers’ lives are enhanced by technology. Therefore it’s certainly wise to look for ways you can improve your marketing strategy through the mobile applications and devices they already use. No matter how traditional your storefront is, there are always useful methods to embrace tech.

 

Social media remains one of the most important tools in marketing today. This means more than just posting deals on your Twitter feed. It can be effective to produce content for your customers, showing that you are a passionate expert on the product or service you provide. From YouTube tutorial videos to blogs, even infographics on your Instagram account. Make your messaging authentic, and give your customers reasons to repeatedly engage with you.

 

Artificial intelligence (AI) is on the rise, and this is exemplified by our adoption of virtual assistants, such as Amazon’s Alexa. As a result, it is expected that 50% of online searches will be undertaken by voice-activated devices in 2020. It’s therefore important that you take steps to optimize your online presence for voice searches. As most queries will be in the form of a question, your strategy should include posting content that answers the questions searches pose.

 

Encouraging Loyalty

Discovering new buyers is fantastic, but retention is often a reflection of how loyal your customers are to your business or brand. It can certainly be effective to focus on your current customers, and how to keep them coming back. There are various ways to inspire loyalty, such as providing a quality product with consistency and excellent customer service. But sometimes you need to offer a little extra incentive.

 

Rewards are certainly an option — but points aren’t always attractive, and frankly, there’s only so many stamp-per-visit cards people are willing to fill their wallets with. One option is to make your attempts at customer retention personal. Listen to what your regular customers enjoy, engage with them on social media, and build your reward system around what’s important to them. Consider offering experiences; VIP treatment, focusing on their individual needs and preferences.

 

You can also encourage customer engagement through premium programs, such as subscriptions. This provides not just a sense of the personal, but also an element of exclusivity. Carefully curated boxes, perhaps available only to those on a specific tier of your reward program, can be a fun and unique way to encourage loyalty.

 

Generational Targeting

One of the important aspects of customer retention is making efforts to understand what your audience wants. Especially for businesses who have stuck around for a while, it’s useful to understand that what’s important to the consumers of one generation is not necessarily the same for the next. In the current climate, millennials are considered the world’s most powerful consumers, so it can be worthwhile to research their needs.

 

Perhaps more so than previous generations of consumers, millennials prioritize companies that exhibit social responsibility in their actions. The companies they return to time and again are those that embrace environmentally sustainable practices. They are also tech-savvy, the first generation of digital natives, and their behaviors reflect this. Truly personalized approaches also hold great value to this generation, who have lived through a barrage of slightly creepy attempts at faux-personal advertising.

 

That said, this focus on the specific needs of the majority of customers may not be a fit for your business. There’s certainly the risk that attempts to serve these preferences could come off as inauthentic if the context of your service doesn’t fit. The content that you create in your marketing strategy, your social media use, should still be well researched, and reflect your preferred demographic.  

 

Conclusion

Customers have a greater variety of options than at almost any time in history — they have access to businesses worldwide. At a time of such open choice, businesses must build intelligent strategies to keep customers returning. By embracing technology, developing personalized loyalty programs, and paying close attention to the needs of their demographic, entrepreneurs can boost their retention in 2020.

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