Customer retention management is actually the process of managing the customer experience as well as the customer satisfaction efforts within your organization. The ultimate goal of customer retention management is to keep your customers acquiring for as long as possible. Customer retention management is also known as an ongoing process that is steered by a customer retention strategy.
The 4 elements of customer retention management
There are mainly 4 key elements of customer retention management. These are:
Customer acquisition
It might feel odd at times to have customer acquisition as a part of the customer retention management procedure. But it is quite crucial and critical to have it here at the start. By customer acquisition we mean here is winning new customers. Any company’s customer retention efforts must begin by trying to win the right customers, in the right way.
Customer retention
Customer acquisition is actually the catalyst for sales or purchase revenue but so many businesses stop there and fail to actively try and retain the customers they win. Customer retention here is a broad topic with many facets that we cover extensively in our Customer Retention Guide. It can be summed up as “the main efforts an organization makes to retain customers in a sustainable way”.
Customer lifecycle management
Customer lifecycle management (CLM) here requires you to examine or look thoroughly at the different loop points you have with your customers, even those that happen before a potential customer. This is an extension of the customer journey mapping or we can say customer map and mystery shopping exercises that are best practices for all customer experience programs.
This is also an important part of customer retention management, as it broadens the program beyond just stopping customers from leaving. In effect, you are creating a complete ecosystem that they actively want to join, and stay a part of.
Customer development and growth
Customer development and growth here means is focused on how you can grow the amount your existing customers are spending with you. Key account marketing, cross-selling, and upsell marketing activities all fall into this section.
Customer development and growth is another form of ‘customer excellence’; also known as customer excellence experience the approach that focuses attention on making your customers more successful at what they want to achieve.
Note to be taken
Customer retention management is a complex job and should be looked at thoroughly while evaluating the loophole for further growth and development of the company.