Customer Retention Strategies To Keep Your Business Strong
Social distancing is necessary in order to protect public health, however there’s no doubt it’s impacting businesses, both large and small.
The Covid-19 crisis has altered the way businesses operate around the globe. Employees are being asked to work from home, companies have shifted priorities to provide aid to others, and many industries – especially hospitality, restaurants, and retail – are suffering undeservingly. Businesses worldwide have quickly transitioned to the new working conditions in order to maintain normalcy and survive during this time. Even businesses who’ve seen an influx in traffic throughout these unforeseen circumstances – food delivery services, healthcare providers, and virtual tech software – had to reprioritize objectives to keep up with demand.
While some effects of the pandemic are inevitable, focus on serving your current customers to keep them loyal and supportive of your brand during this time.
1. Keep communicating with your customers, providing frequent updates and notifications.
With changes being made on a daily basis, it’s best to keep your customers informed. Whether your business is temporarily closing, changing hours, or still operating from home offices, keep your customers looped in. Make these announcements clear and easy to find – share on social media, add a banner to your website, or send out a video email to your current clientele. This way they’ll be up to date on any new developments or changes, and they’ll also know how to reach you with any questions or concerns.
Encourage your customers to stay connected with your business to keep you front of mind. Promote customers to follow you on social media, visit your website, call into the support center, or sign up for a newsletter. When the time comes to return back to normal measures, notify your customers and inform them of the precautions you’re taking to ensure safety.
2. Utilize video to create connection and express empathy.
Speaking of communication… a variety of digital communication tools like Slack, Google Hangout Chats, Covideo, and Zoom, make adjusting from working in an office to working from home less overwhelming. Video tools, like Covideo and Zoom, allow you to maintain human interaction and simulate face-to-face business when you can’t be in person. Bonus: Video, more than any other medium, allows you to empathize with others through visual and nonverbal cues like tone, body language, and facial expressions. Your message becomes more sincere, genuine, and authentic when people see a human on the other end. As a result, your video message is creating a sense of connection and community.
3. Offer discounts if applicable.
If it makes sense for your business, offer discounts or promotions to new and existing customers. Consider it a thank you for their loyalty to your brand, and to offer some relief during these tough times.
Likewise, if you’re in the position to do so, consider ways for your business to give back to the community i.e. canned food drives, virtual volunteering, donations or supporting local restaurants. Our Covideo office is located in the heart of Broad Ripple Village, a small community comprising restaurants, bars and shops – industries all heavily impacted by the Covid-19 pandemic. To help, we teamed up with 10 local, corporate partners and raised over $13,000 to provide relief to our community during these unforeseen & challenging circumstances. Get in touch with your community leaders to come up with ways that your business can get involved.
Interested in using virtual communication to keep your business resilient?
Start a free trial or speak with one of our video strategists, to start creating personalized video messages that will inform, serve, and delight your customers.
