In the customer service world, you may have heard the terminology of customer lifetime value. You may wonder what is customer lifetime value? Customer lifetime value is the total amount of money you can expect to make from a new customer over time. It might take a while to make that money, but on average, you’ll make it. Getting new customers and maintaining your customer base are some great business goals; another great goal is to increase your customer lifetime value.
Here are seven ways to increase your customer lifetime value:
1. Improve Your Onboarding Process
Improving your onboarding process make sure that your employees’ goals include customer lifetime
value. Teaching your employees about the value of customer service, gaining a customer base, and a customer lifetime value as part of the training process.
2. Provide Ongoing Value
Once you serve your customers and start to establish a customer relationship, you need to provide ongoing value to keep the customer coming back. You can do that by creating email and web marketing, providing coupons or specials. Ongoing communication is a big part of keeping the customer happy and the value ongoing.
3. Great Customer Service
Did you know you may lose a third of your customers based on one bad customer service interaction? Keeping up a great attitude and making sure you provide ongoing successful customer service will build that loyalty.
4. Build Relationships with Customers
When you provide great customer service, create a good customer base and create a strong customer lifetime value you also need to continue to build relationships with customers. When you listen to a customer, get to know their needs and provide great service, they will come back. In other words, you build a relationship based on satisfying their needs based on what they see as important.
5. Listen to Your Customers
It is a great idea to do follow-up with your customers and let them provide feedback on their customer service. Feedback about what can be done to provide better service shows that you value their opinions. Not just feedback, but customers can also provide ideas about other products or services they need that you could offer.
6. Personalize Your Customer Experience
In today’s world, it’s easy to feel like just another number. That’s why personalizing your customer experience can be so powerful. In fact, 77% of consumers have spent more money on or recommended a brand because of a personalized service or experience.
Whether you’re creating a personalized user experience in your app, a custom product, or simply personalizing a services package to meet a client’s needs, personalization sells. When people feel like your business cares about them and has invested in them as an individual, they will likely be your customer for life.
7. Upsell and Cross-Sell
Of course, when discussing ways to increase customer lifetime value, we must mention cross-sells and upsells. Cross-sell means to sell related or complementary products to a customer. Upsell means to offer more products and/or the more expensive product after they have already agreed to buy something.
Some other ideas to increase customer lifetime value is to credit customers in good ideas that you use in the business, send customers something to let them know they are appreciated—it may be a personalized postcard or letter, or a surprise coupon or marketing product they could use. That mousepad with your logo on it might just come in handy to them!
Some other helpful ideas to reach a high capacity of customer lifetime value is to offer personalized customer support. As a tech company, you can provide online customer support, online chat and email support and social media marketing and communication. You can also get creative with billing by offering an annual billing cycle. A subscription or membership service means the customer is billed yearly and that can help loyalty as well as make your business more of a commitment.
As your business grows, customer lifetime value is a very important aspect to a successful business. With good customer service and some creativity, your business can thrive with lifetime customers who are more than just customers—but also friends. NuMedia Marketing can help guide you in the right direction for customer service. Our web design and social media marketing will help you establish your business and achieve the goal of optimal customer lifetime value. Call NuMedia Marketing at 317-563-7235 and we will help you take your business up to that next level.
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