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According to a study by the Harvard Business School, “increasing customer retention rates by 5% increases profits by 25% to 95%.” Despite this, many leaders neglect to make customer retention a major part of their business plans. Luckily, there are a few simple ways you can use the data and information included in your monthly Home Care Pulse reports to target and improve customer retention.

1. Client testimonials

Testimonials are both a proof of credibility and a means of building trust with clients. People are strongly influenced by what their friends and family think, and at times, they are even more strongly influenced by what total strangers think. Providing social proof, or evidence that other people are using a certain service, is a surprisingly effective motivator for clients to use or continue using your services. As part of your Home Care Pulse reports, you regularly receive direct quotes from client and caregiver interviews that you can easily utilize on your website, fliers, and literature.

2. Net Promoter Score

Understanding your Net Promoter Score (NPS) is one of the most basic secrets to customer retention. It allows you to categorize your clients based on their likeliness to recommend you to other customers, which is also their likeliness to stick around themselves. Looking at your NPS, it’s important to identify which of your clients are your promoters (those who love your services), passives (those who feel neutral about your services), and detractors (those who dislike your services). Once you’ve determined which clients are passives and detractors, you can begin special work targeting their needs in order to create more promoters. After you identify these categories, it becomes a matter of applying the following steps to satisfy their impending needs.

3. Customer service

82% of consumers in the U.S. said they stopped doing with a company due to a poor customer experience. Analyzing the data from customer interviews will also provide helpful information on how to improve your customer service. Do many clients report a slow response time from your office staff? Take care of it. Are certain clients frustrated with billing or scheduling mix-ups? Take the time to use their specific feedback to resolve their concerns. Often times customer service complaints are easy fixes that can have a big impact on customer satisfaction.

4. Personalized experiences

Personalizing your customer experience changes satisfied clients to loyal clients. A study published in the Journal of Applied Social Psychology compared several groups of restaurant goers to measure how much tips increased after waiters delivered mints with their check. The study found that tips increased most when waiters not only brought mints with the check but also came back a little later with extra mints, saying “I thought you might like more mints…” This simple gesture demonstrating interest in the customer’s happiness was sufficient to raise tips by 23%. Clients frequently drop hints at personal touches or services that would improve and personalize their experience. If they mention how nice it is when their caregiver takes time to talk with them, ask the caregiver to provide more companionship. They may mention how much the puzzles they do with their caregiver. Find a way to match their customer experience with their personal interests and needs.

Before you put all your focus on marketing to new clients, use your Home Care Pulse reports to form a retention plan. After all, most sources say that acquiring new customers costs 4 to 10 times more than maintaining current ones.

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One Comment

  1. Tyler August 12, 2015 at 11:24 am - Reply

    This is great!

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