Existing customers account for the majority of sales for most businesses. You have a probability of making a sale that is somewhere between 60 and 70% with an existing customer while that percentage drops below 20% with a new lead.
Focusing on nurturing relationships with your existing customers makes sense since the cost is much lower than new customer acquisition. Building long-term relationships will unlock more repeat sales, and those customers will turn into advocates for your business and help you grow through word-of-mouth marketing. Improving customer retention will help your business in the long run.
Here is what you need to know about how to market to field service customers who have used your services before and how to increase customer retention.
Customer Management Strategies
We have already written about the strategies you can use to find new customers. Offer a great experience from the beginning by developing an onboarding process that is convenient for your customers.
Your onboarding process is an opportunity to establish long-term connections with your customers. Encourage customers to connect with you via email or social media during the onboarding process. You should also collect data that will help you offer a better experience in the long term. You should respect your customers’ privacy by not collecting more data than necessary, but by giving customers the possibility to tell you more about the kind of services or content they would be interested in.
Pay attention to how regularly customers need your services. You know your industry better than anyone and probably notice patterns. Do customers typically contact you again for another field visit every six months? Are customers likely to need another service a few months after the initial field visit?
Identifying these patterns will help you deliver the right information at the right time while generating more repeat sales.
Email Marketing
Field service email marketing allows you to stay in touch with customers in the long term while delivering content that is relevant and valuable. It is one of the best customer retention strategies. Get new customers to sign up for your email list as part of your onboarding process and think about offering incentives like a discount to encourage them to opt in.
For 80% of professionals, emails increase retention. We recommend making that channel one of the core elements of your retention efforts because you will get results.
Here are a few tips to follow to use emails for marketing your services to current customers:
- Segment your list so you can use emails to deliver relevant content.
- Focus on delivering value with educational content or special offers.
- Use emails to educate your audience about the different services you offer and how they could benefit from these different services.
- Keep your emails short and straight to the point.
- Use formatting that makes your content easy to read.
- Improve engagement with visual content like images or videos.
Responding to Reviews
You’re more than likely aware of the importance of field service reviews and know that new customers use reviews to make decisions about your business.
You should take the time to respond to reviews to engage existing customers and fix any issues that would prevent a customer from using your services again in the future. Seeing that you take the time to engage with customers could encourage more people to write reviews.
Monitor different review platforms and social media. If a customer writes a positive review, take the time to write a short response to thank them.
If you see a negative review, write a short but sincere apology. It’s best to move the discussion to a more private channel so you can get more details and find a solution. Respond to negative reviews publically to show that you care about customer service, and take action by offering a resolution to avoid losing a customer.
Providing Great Customer Service
The most important piece of advice on how to retain field service customers is to offer a great experience in the first place. Prioritizing customer service during field visits is the key to establishing positive long-term relationships.
A positive experience could set you apart from competitors and generate repeat sales since 86% of consumers are willing to spend more for a better experience.
Make customer satisfaction one of your core values. Assess your current employee training program and think about adding a module that focuses on customer service.
Adopt the omnichannel model. That model gives customers the possibility to interact with a business via different channels, including a website, emails, social media, phone calls, and in-person interactions, and to have a consistent experience across all these channels.
Make sure your message and the experience you offer are consistent across the channels you use and make it convenient for customers to get in touch with you. Prioritize customer experience across the channels you use, by offering personalized content, making information easy to find, and providing detailed answers when customers call or email you.
You can deliver excellent customer service during field visits by establishing a step-by-step process that employees can follow. That process could include an initial conversation with the customer to find out more about their expectations, and a follow-up phone call to make sure the customer is fully satisfied with the services received.
Providing Customers with Options to Book and Pay Online
You can market your services to current customers by creating a streamlined process for customers who want to book or pay for field services.
Once a customer completes your onboarding process and receives the initial field service, stay in touch with them by asking them to complete a survey, or by delivering educational content that is relevant to them.
Send them reminders to schedule another field visit when it’s relevant to do so. Make that process convenient by sharing a link to your online booking tool. You can find online booking and billing tools that will send automated reminders to your customers to make that process easier.
You can also use data from your booking and payment system to develop an accurate model that shows when customers are likely to need your services again so you can reach out at the right moment.
WorkWave Agency offers performing software solutions that will help you create a streamlined customer management process. Book a demo to find out more about our convenient online booking and payment solutions!
