Wemla

  • HOME
  • SHOP
  • PRODUCTS
    • Productivity Tools
    • Reference Tools
  • COACHING
  • BLOG
    • Business Strategy
    • Customer Experience
    • Entrepreneurship
    • Marketing & Sales
    • Productivity
    • This Website
    • Wemla Blog Series
    • Wemla News
    • Wemla Products
  • NEWSLETTER
    • Library
  • ABOUT
  • CONTACT
  • My Account
  • Basket

The Happy Customer: Customer Acquisition, Retention, Switching And Relations

18 February 2020

Email
Share
Share
Pin
Tweet
WhatsApp

Today we are going to talk about four different aspects of the connection between companies and their customers: customer acquisition, customer retention, customer switching and customer relations. Notice that customer can mean any of the four types we defined in our blog post “What Is Customer Experience Or CX?”, not just consumer as in business-to-consumer, B2C. The implications of these concepts are so broad that we’ll stick with defining them and helping you think about them in practical terms, rather than go in-depth on each in this post.

Customer Acquisition

Customer acquisition is the act of letting potential new customers know you exist as a business, that you have something of value to offer and they think the same, then make a purchase from you. How you work to persuade them to buy from you is another story (unique to each firm) and there is no guarantee they will buy a second time.

These days many of us, who act online mainly or only, try to automate parts of this process such that efforts can be concentrated to later parts of the connection to secure repeat buyers. It supposedly costs 5-25 times more to acquire new customers compared to selling to existing ones, so it’s no wonder customer experience has become crucial to any firm.

It’s humbling indeed to recall we need to work hard for any and all sales, but wouldn’t it be nice if a majority of customers would come back? You could take things to new levels and be challenged to grow as a business owner as well.

Questions:

  • Do you have a good idea of how many of your customers become repeat buyers?
  • If you answered no, could you try to find out on a not-too-detailed level how many buy more than once?

Customer Retention

Customer Retention is a big word for an easily understood concept: to retain customers, keep them with your firm rather than the competition. Once you’ve acquired a customer, can you retain them too?

The less easy part is how to go about keeping them, but we’ll get back to this in another post on customer loyalty. You’ll have plenty of tricks up your sleeve once we’re through this series about The Happy Customer, not to worry!

Question:

  • Are you a firm for which it is even possible to retain customers? An example of type of business for which it can be hard or literally impossible is the gas station next to a motorway, when customer fill up the tank, use the bathrooms and buy food and drink, then drive off into the sunset.

Customer Switching

Now we’re moving on to the parts of doing business that show who knows their stuff and who doesn’t. Exciting and fun if you ask us!

Customer switching, to put it bluntly, is when a customer bought once or several times from you, but decided someone else had a better value proposition. And off they went, thereby abandoning you!

This can be a good thing, believe it or not, and we will return to this interesting topic in the future, but let’s focus for now on when you think it sucks they decided to jump ship. Could it be that your offerings are too difficult to understand? Access? Implement?

Especially if you’re a coach or consultant, the perceived workload tied to a personal change or development may seem too daunting, so is there something you could start looking for lurking under the mental surface of a client? This goes for all of us though in that customers rarely give negative feedback, but they just leave. Keeping sensors out regularly can reveal surprising things on the emotional level.

Other times it’s nothing personal, but a money matter. People shop around for the cheapest deals on phone, electricity, insurance and other contracts, but some of us don’t care about who cuts our hair or prepares our food either. If their loyalty was based on living close to your brick-and-mortar rather than you and your business, they will feel the same about a new service provider as well.

Question:

  • Is it emotional for you when customers choose to switch to the competition? Be mindful if this is the case and please remember there are numerous reasons for switching, more than we can come up with usually.

Customer Relations

The fourth and final concept of this blog post is customer relations or customer relationships. Maybe you’ve heard of customer relationship management, CRM? It’s one of some major Things in modern marketing as product-centric marketing started to develop into a vast number of variants.

In short, customer relations is about nurturing the relationship to potential and existing customers, and CRM has developed into its own art form. If we return to the fact that acquiring new customers costs a firm far more, it’s no wonder focus is increasingly on how a customer not only perceives the offering itself, but also how it’s found, investigated and bought, then received and taken into use. It pays to climb into the shoes of a buyer when improving this experience and aiming for a smooth interaction every step of the way.

Questions:

  • Have you verbalised a concrete strategy for managing your own customer relations yet?
  • If not, could you spend some time thinking about ways to draw existing customers closer to the heart of your business?

Conclusion

Customers are essential to a business and the most loyal ones do some of your marketing for free in addition to bringing friends along. Acquiring customers is only the first step since customer retention has potential to stabilise permanently your livelihood. Once you move customers from retention into satisfaction (coming up next!) territory, you’re solid and effectively avoiding major switching altogether.

Customer relations isn’t beneficial to the customer only, but once you have the privilege of spending more time on this part of business, you can learn new things about yourself and your firm. And can take it to other levels as a result, with profitability skyrocketing. Sounds good? We think so!

Please take a moment to think about our questions above and share your thoughts in the comments!

 

This blog post is the first in our beginner-level series The Happy Customer on customer experience.

Photo credit: Hao Ji.

The Happy Customer: Customer Acquisition, Retention, Switching And Relations
Email
Share
Share
Pin
Tweet
WhatsApp

Customer Experience · Leave a Comment

About Nina Martin

As a parallel entrepreneur I am Managing Director of Wemla and a sole proprietor of three brands. My current coaching certificate is Certified Professional Coach, CPC. Business is inspirational because it's all about people, once words and concepts are set aside. Why do we buy, why not? What makes us happy customers? And how does sustainable development fit into all this?

« The Happy Customer
How To Use Apple Pencil And Our Lessons Learned »

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

About Wemla

Welcome to our website! We teach business skills to entrepreneurs all around the world to help you start and grow a profitable business. Read more about Wemla here!

Read & Connect

  • Bloglovin
  • Instagram
  • LinkedIn
  • Pinterest
  • RSS

Blog Topics

Business Strategy
Customer Experience
Entrepreneurship
Marketing & Sales
Productivity
This Website
Wemla Blog Series
Wemla News
Wemla Products

Our Most Recent Posts

Our Newsletter

Want a more profitable business with time for vacation? Sign up for regular newsletters and access to a private library of free resources!

We use a double-opt in process. No spam, unsubscribe at any time. Read our Newsletter page and Privacy Policy for more!

Wemla

Home
About

Customer Service

Contact
FAQ
Ordering, Delivery and Returns
Sitemap

Media

Media
Media Kit
Press Releases

Policies & Statements

Cookie Policy
Disclaimer
Disclosure Policy
Modern Slavery Statement
Privacy Policy
Sustainable Development
Terms & Conditions

Connect With Us

  • Instagram
  • LinkedIn
  • Pinterest

Coaching

Coaching
Business coaching
Business Strategy coaching
Customer Experience coaching
Marketing and Sales coaching
Mindset coaching
Productivity coaching

Products

Products
Courses
Small Digital Products:
· Productivity Tools
· Reference Tools

Shop

E-Books
Posters
Productivity Tools
Reference Tools

Free Resources

Blog
Library for subscribers
Newsletter

Want A More Profitable Business?

We can help! Sign up for our newsletter and get access to our library of subscriber resources created for entrepreneurs like yourself.

We use a double-opt in process. No spam, unsubscribe at any time. Read our Newsletter page and Privacy Policy for more!

Looking For Something?

Copyright © 2023 Wemla Ab Oy.

The Wemla website uses cookies, read more in our Cookie Policy. Edit Cookie SettingsNecessary Cookies OnlyACCEPT COOKIES
Cookie Policy

Privacy Overview

This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these cookies, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are as essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may have an effect on your browsing experience.
Necessary
Always Enabled
Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. These cookies do not store any personal information.
Non-necessary
Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and is used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies. It is mandatory to procure user consent prior to running these cookies on your website.
SAVE & ACCEPT