It’s a quantifiable fact: Acquiring new customers is 10 times more difficult and expensive than retaining existing ones. Fortunately, it may be easier than you think to keep your clients.
An experiment by Rice University professors and published in Harvard Business Review concluded that simply asking customers how a company performed is itself a great customer-retention strategy. Researchers selected two groups of customers and sent just one of them a satisfaction and opinion survey. After a year, the group that took the survey was twice as likely to have continued loyalty toward the company. Researchers speculate this is because:
1. Satisfaction surveys reinforce customers’ desire to be coddled and reinforce positive feelings.
2. Surveys may increase awareness of auxiliary products and services.
3. The very process of asking opinions can induce people to form an opinion on something they otherwise may not have considered.
The article delves more into why surveys can be a strong tool for your business.
Source: Question Pro, “Sending Out A Survey To Customers Can Double Sales”