customer retention strategies

1. Lecture 12: Customer Retention
Strategies

2. Current Customer Retention
Strategies used by DAWAT
• After the event take feedback from the client.
• Review Sheet: satisfaction with the event, services and employees.
• Do a follow-up call to take further feedback.
• A hand-written note and chocolates should be presented to the
clients as a thank you gift after a week or two of the event.
• There should be a system in place through which clients receive
congratulatory anniversary emails on the event date .
• Top clients get invited to attend annual dinner.

3. • A monthly SMS is sent to clients updating them about their offers
and current packages.
• CEO and staff makes calls to clients just to ask how they are.
Since it’s a courtesy call the response is very good,
•DAWAT provides food from events to the Robin Hood Army
which gives surplus food to less fortunate people from restaurants
across Pakistan and India.
• DAWAT is the only event management company to be in
collaboration with the Robin Hood Army.
•Here a few suggestions on how you can make customer retention
strategies:
Current Customer Retention
Strategies used by DAWAT

4. Net Promoter Score
(NPS)
• A loyalty metric to collect customer feedback.
• “How likely is it that you would recommend DAWAT to a friend or colleague?”
• Scores range from 1 (not at all likely)-10 (extremely likely)
• “What is the most important reason for your score?”
• Customer answers can be classified into:
 0-6 Detractors (unhappy customers who can hurt your brand through negative
word-of-mouth)
 7-8 Passives (satisfied but indifferent customers who could be swayed by the
competition)
 9-10 Promoters (loyal customers who will keep buying and referring others)
 It can be sent through Google Forms on important touch points.

5. Reinforce Your Value
• Small reminders are needed, based on the psychological
phenomenon of reciprocity which is the idea that if someone does
something nice for us, we’ll probably do nice things for them and
vice versa
• Seeing numbers quantifies the results, reinforcing the value and
appreciation of your business makes it more likely for clients to
continue doing business with them.

6. Build Trust Through
Your Relationships
 A study found that as trust increases, commitment grows.
 A relationship marketing strategy (especially important for a service-based businesses)
can be implemented.
 Email customers on a monthly basis to touch base, inform them about recent news and
services and share any articles that may be helpful.
 Blogs can include your achievements, accomplishments and any innovation that clients
would value.
 You can build relationships online.
 Interact more: one-to-one connections can build strong, unbreakable bonds.
 Include profile links in communications with clients and post valuable, relevant content
regarding new products/services, reviews and testimonials by clients, share thoughts on
topics and also engage with clients who are commenting and providing feedback.

7. Build Commitment
• Committed customers will have an emotional attachment to your proposition
and organization and will be very satisfied clients.
• Instrumental commitment: clients are unbeatably satisfied and feel that no
other event management company can meet their needs as well as yours
does.
• Committed clients believe that your company has the best prices, services
and reputation.
• Relational commitment: clients become highly attached or have emotional
ties with one person, group or people in the organization.
• They are reliable, competent, and empathic and go the extra mile.
• Values-based commitment: values are aligned with their clients.
• Be known for values and beliefs like honesty, integrity, value for money and
quality.

8. Establish KPI’s And
Use CRM Software
• Establish KPI’s for customer retention activities and even customer service levels to
ensure that service levels are met or even exceeded, by linking rewards to the levels
of service provided
• Track, analyze and use customer data to make informed decisions and strategies
• Implicit (behavioral data about purchase and usage) and explicit (customer’s voiced
opinions and preferences, such as interviews, focus groups and surveys) can be
gathered
• KPI’s like what the overall raw customer retention rate is, customer retention rate
for different events, cost of customer retention, share of wallet (share of customer
spending on the category) of the retained customers and the cost-effectiveness of
customer retention tactics
• Excel can be used for now, CRM can be possibly used in the future

9. What is KPI ?
A key performance indicator (KPI) is a business metric used to
evaluate factors that are crucial to the success of an organization.
KPIs differ per organization / business. KPIs may be net revenue
or a customer loyalty metric, while government might consider
unemployment rates.

10. What DAWAT has to keep
in mind while taking
out KPI
• SMS Updates
• Email Updates
• Social Media Updates
• Web Updates
• Phone Call Updates
• Written Follow Ups

11. Know Your Clients
• Clients will like businesses that know them better.
• Give them importance rather than treating them just like another
client.
• Develop the service according to their taste and personality.
• Do not rush them, since studies show that people view a service
experience more positively when they are not rushed or ignored.

12. Create Strong
Employee Loyalty
• Unhappy, frustrated employees will not deal with clients properly;
they don’t have any reason to!
• Employees need to be given the right tools, training and be
appreciated.
• A study has shown that those companies that appreciate
employee value have a return on equity and assets of more than
triple than companies which don’t!
• Acknowledge an employee for something they did right leads to
work excellence.
• Repeating the appreciation and consistently letting them know
what they are doing right will ensure that it is done by the
employees since people tend to repeat behavior that they have
been praised for.

13. Create A System For
Complaints
• Complains are a way to know that there is something wrong in
the way the clients are being served, which is important so that
you can fix it.
• A way to make clients happy again and impress them with
outstanding customer service, winning an even more loyal client.
• Social media and its ability to reach so many people in such a
short time, its best to not even let one customer complaint go
unheard and unresolved.
• The Disney Institutes’ H.E.A.R.D. acronym for customer service
recovery can be adopted by your business: Hear, Empathize,
Apologize, Resolve and Diagnose.