Keeping customers engaged is one of the most challenging tasks faced by marketers. While there are many methods that can be deployed to enhance the customer retention experience, an ideal solution lies in implementing customer retention automation affectively.
What is customer retention automation?
Customer retention automation involves utilizing automation tools, systems, and processes with the aim of enhancing customer engagement and loyalty and streamlining communication with every customer. By bringing in advanced marketing tools and software, you can easily create personalised experiences and efficient workflows without the need for constant human intervention.
Importance of Customer Retention Automation
After embracing automation across business departments today, a feature which is commonplace, we can say that customer retention automation plays an instrumental role in gaining a competitive edge. Implementing automation in your customer retention process will enhance your operational efficiency, deliver superior customer experiences, and boost employee productivity too.
Here are the top benefits of customer retention automation:
- Automating your customer retention process will improve your operational efficiency. McKinsey has reported that companies that are using customer retention automation can reduce operational costs by up to 30%.
- Customer retention automation enhances your CX. A study done by Salesforce revealed that 76% of consumers anticipate brands to understand their needs and expectations.
How does customer retention automation work?
Different companies may have their own internal rules to automate parts of their customer retention process. Ideally, the goal is to improve operational efficiency, reduce churn rates, and enhance customer satisfaction. Here are some steps that you can follow to make customer retention automation work for you:
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Optimize the customer onboarding process
Think of automating the onboarding process for your customers using in-platform walkthroughs and informative email campaigns. These shorten the learning curve for your customers and relieve the burden on your customer success team.
You can further personalize the process by asking your customers to choose the features they are most interested in. For example, choosing the kind of content they want to receive, asking them to choose the features they love the most, and so on.
Email marketing drips
After customer onboarding is done, they should receive regular updates about your offerings without interfering with their privacy. You can achieve it through drip emails and help your customers get the most out of their subscriptions. When you create a series of targeted emails, you can ensure that customers receive timely emails with the information they are most interested in reading.
A typical drip campaign may include a series of introductory emails, personalized recommendations based on their choices and past behavior, educational content, and more.
Surveys and customer feedback
Another automation push in your customer retention strategy is creating an automated feedback platform. These systems can enhance your retention efforts by providing insights into user experiences. We recommend you create feedback loops during subscription periods so you have an idea of whether your customers are enjoying your offerings and what else they want.
Another feedback loop should be created during cancellations to help you learn why your customers left you.
Chatbot Support
Chatbots provide AI-based support and engage in a human-like conversation with your customers. They are trained to resolve surface-level issues, offering instant support.
As chatbots offer instant support and take immediate feedback from your customers, they reduce wait times and ensure that your customers’ queries are attended to on time.
You can choose where you want these chatbots to show up; ideally, they look good when they appear on your landing page or website’s home page.
Top customer retention automation tools
Here is a shortlist of tools that will help you integrate automation into your customer retention strategy. While the list is not exhaustive, we have tried to list the most popular ones:
- Open Loyalty is one of the leading customer retention tools, allowing you to create personalised loyalty programmes for your customers.
- Campaigner is one of the leading tools for customer segmentation and personalisation.
- Birdeye is an ideal tool for business reputation management.
- Chargebee is powerful software to automate your retention efforts. It helps you gather feedback, reduce failed payments, and deliver personalised offers.
- Zendesk: It comes with a full suite of customer service options. The tool comes in handy when you want to reduce churn rates and improve satisfaction.
Wrapping Up
For all marketers and sales teams, the most essential task is to keep customers engaged and retained. Everyone is running in a rat race to grab the attention of his customers, but the one who wins the race pays attention to the customer retention strategies.
Given the age of AI and advanced tools, automation can be a game-changer in your customer retention strategies. Implement the tips and strategies we mentioned above, and we are sure you will observe a reduced churn rate and happier customers.
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