10 Ways to Boost Customer Retention

Came across a great read from CallCentreHelper.com on tips for customer retention.

There are many forces at hand trying to weaken your customer retention rates:

- Increasing competition
- Economy
- Emerging technologies
- Changing customer expectations

I've taken the liberty of rewriting their list of tips and condensing the article down to some strong bullet points.

Adopt two or three of these ideas for a boost in customer retention:

- Prep the customer for what's coming next, prior to tranferring to another agent

- Add space in your CRM for interesting notes about the customer. Hobbies, Kids, Music, etc.

- Provide a comprehensive yet abbrieviated recap of what's been discussed.

- Compile an easy-access list of save opportunities for different categories of customers and calls.

- Use analytics at hand to anticipate customer behavior based on experience and trending.

- Music on hold keeps the customers tapping their feet as they await pick-up.

- Be consistent in all channels: phone, email, web chat, social, etc.

- Place a higher value on FCR (first call resolution) as opposed to AHT (average hold time).

- Share successfull calls/stories among agents

- Let the customers know how happy you are to have solved their issue or answered their questions.

You can read the entire article from CallCentreHelper.com in its' original form here:
http://www.callcentrehelper.com/ten-tips-to-improve-customer-retention-16719.htm

Related articles

• Retention v acquisition - social media and customer experience (freshnetworks.com)
• Five Critical Mistakes Chief Customer Officers Say Must Be Avoided (customerthink.com)
• Retaining customers in competitive world! (trak.in)

What is the ultimate goal of your business?

As a representative of the sales and marketing team for Coordinated Systems, Inc. (CSI), I often have to define what our ultimate goals are for the year. Is it a # of new sales? Is it a # of new strategic partnerships? Is it purely a dollar amount? If you read Eliyahu Goldratt's book "The Goal", the answer would be, well, you need to find the answer for yourself. You could actually use "The Secret" to figure out "The Goal". Sorry, sometimes humor works.

At CSI, our goal is to get as many testimonials as we can. We strive to maintain or improve on our 97.5% customer retention rate. We're looking to provide our customers with stellar service which reaches beyond their expectations. That's why we've hired only the best people to interact with our customers. When we send our implementation and training teams out on the road, it is a rare occasion that they do NOT come back with a testimonial. That's "The Goal" according to CSI.