10 Ways for Software Companies to Keep Customers Coming
Marketing strategies are a significant part of the equation in starting a business. Companies will certainly struggle to put their business on the map without them. Steady customer traffic is needed for a business to survive in a highly competitive industry. So if you own or manage a software company, you have to learn how to keep your customers and attracting new ones while you’re at it. That’s one of the steps you need to execute if you want your software business to stay relevant and be relevant in the years to come. Looking for some guidance? If you are, then you’ve come to the right place here with us. We’ll show you 10 ways to keep customers coming to your software company.
10 Ways for Software Companies to Keep Customers Coming
Invest More on Customer Care
If you want to keep your customers, you should start by providing them excellent service. In doing so, you’re showing that you care about their welfare as consumers or buyers. To improve the service delivery of your company, you should invest in optimizing your customer care procedures. Probably the best thing to invest in for this matter is customer care training programs/sessions for your employees. Customer care training programs/sessions will enhance the skills and methods of your employees in interacting and handling customers properly and professionally. In return, the customers will be satisfied with the services they received and build loyalty towards your company. A survey by Microsoft emphasizes that 96% of customers consider customer service as a deciding factor in placing their loyalty towards a business.
Monitor Competition
Among the actions of a marketing plan or a business plan are to check industry trends and monitor competing companies. Both actions are necessary for the success of a company. But when it comes to keeping customers, monitoring competing companies is directly more important. Other software companies, which you share the same market with, have the power to take customers from your company. Their products and services might be slightly or immensely superior from yours, and that’s not a good sign. Indeed, the market will always go for better offers nine times out of 10, especially if they’re price is right. That said, you have to monitor your competition’s products and services and analyze their strategies. Afterward, formulate your own strategies to outmaneuver their tactics in attracting customers.
Measure Customer Satisfaction and Work on Their Feedback
In order to find ways to keep your customers, you have to measure their satisfaction levels and listen to their feedback. You need to know if they find your products and services satisfactory or otherwise. Don’t get daunted if they provide negative feedback. Instead, consider them as opportunities to improve and meet your customers’ needs and demands. There are available software tools you can use in measuring customer satisfaction accurately and receiving feedback timely. If your customers see that your company made improvements, that could prompt them to stay. Another survey by Microsoft finds that 52% of individuals on the planet firmly believe that working on feedback should be a top priority of every company.
Introduce a Customer Loyalty Program
A customer loyalty program is a marketing tactic that entices customers to purchase products or avail services as much as they can to receive bonuses. That said, your software company should introduce a loyalty program if you want customers to continue being your customers. The bonuses given by the program will be considered as a means of gratitude to your customers for their continued trust in your business. In addition, when customers receive bonuses from your company, they’ll feel that their presence in your business is valued, which can strengthen your relationship with them.
Calculate and Analyze Churn Continuously
Aside from risks of possible breaches of your company’s IT security systems, there’s the risk of churn, which is a major concern on its own right. Churn (also called the rate of attrition) refers to the decline of a company’s customer traffic or the rate of which customers stop purchasing/availing their products and services. To avoid churn and keep your customers, continuously calculate and analyze it ahead of time before it escalates. Try to identify the possible causes of churn so that you can eliminate them before they can deplete your company’s customer traffic.
Create a Community for Customers
Your customers are on the same boat in receiving products and services from your software company. Many of them will want to connect with each other and discuss your company’s offers. In that case, it would be best to create a community for them using social media or through the company’s official website. In doing so, not only are you creating a community for them, but you’re also establishing a platform to stay connected with your customers. You should know that a consistent connection with your customers is important to keep them.
Focus on Customer Onboarding
Customer onboarding or client onboarding is the process of listening to the concerns and demands of customers and offering them the products and services that can fulfill their needs. This tactic of inviting and keeping customers is very effective because you’ll be tapping into the very root of their buying needs. In the customer onboarding process, you have to study your general target market to anticipate what they might want or need out of your software products and services.
Stay Transparent
Of course, to consistently put your software business on the map, it has to stay transparent in the market. If there’s basically nothing new in your company, or if there are but there’s just no effort in announcing them to the masses, the market will forget about your business. Therefore, there will only be few customers coming in. For that reason, transparency is important. You can keep your software company transparent through advertisements and marketing/promotional campaigns in social media.
Manage Expectations
In keeping customers coming, you need to exercise one of the important practices in business management and project management, which is managing expectations. Yes, having set expectations for your customers can be good to boost optimism in the business, but they need to be realistic. Otherwise, the customers might get discouraged that some of the expectations your company had set weren’t fully fulfilled. In that case, you can lose customers, unfortunately. So make sure to manage expectations well.
Reward Your Customers
Rewarding customers for purchasing or availing your software products and services are among the surest methods to keep them coming. The concept is simple. We people love to receive rewards; and when we receive rewards, we tend to want more. That said, customers will certainly continue being associated with your software company, and along the way, new customers will come in as well. Also, having a reward scheme can impact your company’s branding positively.
Customers are the main reason why companies from different industries are able to continue to run their operations. Why? Here’s the answer, customers fuel revenue into the company, which results to profit. So used what you’ve learned in this article and keep your customers coming.