Customer retention never did sound very sexy.
I've never found it easy to tell people that I help with 'customer retention' - it's usually met with polite but blank looks. Sometimes I say 'I help keep customers coming back', but even that never has the excitement of 'I help you get more customers!' - even if I then go on to talk about how retaining customers means increased profits, blah blah.
No. For many people, marketing means SALES, and for sales you have to GET MORE CUSTOMERS, they say.
So I really enjoyed the lead story in New Media Age this week - according to the new Lightspeed Online Shopping Report, it seems that the percentage of people planning to shop online rather than offline has dropped by 1%. The first drop ever.
Seems like online shopping is no longer a novelty, and people are starting to get fed up with poor online customer service, fulfilment issues and poorly performing websites. So, this year is apparently the year of customer retention. Bring it on!
I'd be interested to know other people's opinions - why do business owners prefer to focus on customer acquisition? Are poorly performing ecommerce sites to blame for people going back to the High Street?
Photo of Harry Rosen from Senior Money Memos
