Category: Insights

Posted on by Listen360

Your members hold your reputation in their hands, and member retention impacts your bottom line. That is why it is so important to send net promoter score surveys to survey members. Regardless of how you crunch the numbers, recruiting new members for a fitness franchise is more expensive than retaining existing ones. And a 5% increase in existing retention can yield a 25% increase in profits.

Using strategies like NPS® surveys is the best way to get positive member feedback and gain valuable insights into the performance of company. These tips will boost your net promoter score survey response rate and help you reach your NPS® benchmarks in your survey responses. Having an intentional NPS® survey design is a great way to maximize its capabilities.

The Critical Role of NPS® in Your Fitness Franchise Business

Evaluating member loyalty across several franchise locations requires many variables: member experience, online sign-ups and services, member support team, brand trust, membership options, staff interactions, and available equipment and classes. One effective way to measure and improve member loyalty in the fitness franchise industry is through Net Promoter Score® (NPS®) surveys.

NPS® surveys are simple member loyalty surveys that provide insights about your members’ willingness to recommend your franchise to others. Knowing where you stand with existing members is crucial to your fitness franchise growth strategy. Your member base is the best way to get to your target market, which is why it is so key to collect member feedback. This can also gauge member loyalty and maintain member NPS® data.

NPS® Surveys and Why Every Fitness Franchise Needs One

Developed in 2003 to evaluate the member experience, an NPS® survey asks, “How likely are you to recommend (business name) to a friend or colleague?” It asks loyal members to respond with a numeric rating between zero and ten. Zero is not likely to recommend, and ten is extremely likely to recommend. From there, follow-up questions and email surveys will ask the member why they decided on the rating they provided. This is how you can measure NPS® and determine how many members will give qualitative feedback and explain their member’s experience at your business. This is how to use the NPS® best practices to your advantage.

It is an easy and cost-effective way to compare franchise performance across multiple locations and different subject lines. In addition, the open-ended follow-up NPS® survey questions give you an opportunity to look at common areas where each franchise is performing well and where it needs improvement from respondents. 

How NPS® is Calculated

It sounds simple enough, but NPS® scoring is more than a numerical score from zero to ten, it’s more involved than just positive or negative member sentiment. Here is a brief overview of how to calculate NPS®.

The NPS® survey responses are split into three numeric categories:

  • Promoters (score 9-10) indicating high loyalty and a strong likelihood to recommend your fitness franchise
  • Passives (score 7-8) indicating they are somewhat loyal but not enthusiastic about your brand or service
  • Detractors (score 0-6) indicating low loyalty and the potential to spread negative word-of-mouth

Let’s learn more about the impact of each of these categories in different member segments and the overall NPS® survey best practices to avoid survey fatigue.

Promoters vs. Passives vs. Detractors

Promoters are loyal members who will continue to use the franchise’s services and actively advocate for them. They are more likely to refer new members, measure member loyalty, positively review the franchise online, and can contribute to the long-term success and growth of a franchise. This will encourage more member engagement and raises your average nps score.

Passives fall somewhere in the middle, are relatively indifferent, and may be easily swayed by competing offerings. They may or may not return to your fitness franchise but are unlikely to promote the experience to others. This group possesses the greatest opportunity to convert more promoters. Switching their member journey to a more positive relationship and overall member success, which is why passives are key to send surveys to.

Detractors pose the highest risk to the franchise’s reputation and may deter potential members through negative feedback. They are more likely to tell their social circle about their experience and may even go out of their way to leave a negative review online. This can overall lower your member sentiment and lower positive response rates. They will be much more difficult to bump up to promoters but could be swayed into becoming passives.

Remember that 95% of members will search online reviews before purchasing, and 40% have avoided a company based on negative reviews. A single negative or 1-star review can weigh more on members’ opinions than your average rating. Therefore, your NPS® feedback and NPS® scores have real consequences when it comes to member experience.

NPS® Scoring System

The absolute NPS® is calculated with the total percentage of promoters subtracted from the total percentage of detractors response rates. The total NPS®, or absolute score, ranges from -100 to +100, with higher scores indicating a higher proportion of promoters relative to detractors.

The absolute score itself is less important than the trend it represents over time. Fitness franchising companies should strive to improve their NPS® by increasing member services, offering additional employee training, and using members’ NPS® responses to make measured changes across the business.

Absolute vs. Relative

While the absolute NPS® number is helpful for internal tracking and benchmarking against previous results, the relative NPS® provides industry context. It is essential to compare each franchise NPS® with all your locations, competitors, and the overall industry standard to understand its significance and identify areas for improvement. NPS® results will vary depending on how the survey is conducted. Scores are higher when it is accessed with ease, from an NPS® survey in-app that can measure NPS® regularly.

How to Run Your NPS® Survey

These are essentially pre-built, so all you need is an NPS® survey tool to send NPS® surveys and having the right NPS® question in your surveys. You can create a manual delivery system using email lists, in-app surveys, SMS, web plugins, or even phone calls. We recommend an automated system like Listen360 that sends an NPS® survey on a regular cadence of your choosing, and can even offer a list of follow-up questions.   

In addition, Listen360 member engagement software collects member data and analyzes it to automatically calculate your NPS® and provide detailed reports about your franchises in real-time, and can even have your NPS® surveys in app.

What Transactional NPS® Survey Scores Mean for Fitness Franchises

Generally, an NPS® score of 0-30 is considered decent in any industry. A “good” NPS® score in the fitness franchise industry depends on factors such as local competition, business size, and trends in member experience. Your NPS® survey response rate is a key indicator of how others perceive your business, and how the calculate net promoter score has a major effect on your popularity.

According to our most recent Fitness NPS® Benchmark Report, the median score for a gym was 57. Gyms with a score of 71 or higher put them in the top 25% of all gyms. For studio and boutique fitness franchises, an NPS® of 88 or higher will place them in the top 25%.

It’s important to note that achieving a score of 100 is rare due to the inherent variability of human preferences, naturally, there will be a member churn for a variety of personal reasons. Contact us today for the full report from our 600,000 member responses from the NPS® survey results. 

Click here for Listen360’s full ebook, The Franchisor’s Guide to NPS®.

Get Started With Listen360’s NPS® Platform Today

Member experience is important to the growth and sustainability of your fitness franchise, and early identification and intervention are crucial in preventing reputation-damaging experiences. However, lengthy satisfaction surveys can detract from members’ willingness to help build your brand and reputation and will lower the response rate and valuable feedback or lower the NPS® survey response rates.

If you’re ready to learn about your fitness franchise’s NPS® and how to assess the pulse of your member base, consider starting with Listen360’s member engagement platform. Together we can build stronger member relationships, gather meaningful engagement feedback, and ultimately retain your loyal members.

Contact us today for the complete reports mentioned here or to learn how we can take your fitness franchise to the next level. 

Posted on by Listen360

Support Your Franchises, Satisfy More Members

When fitness buffs love their gym or fitness center, they keep coming back. Simple as that. But if it was that simple, all your fitness franchises would be swimming in happy, loyal members with no problems whatsoever, right?

Not quite.

Ensuring member loyalty is a difficult job — especially when you’re responsible for a franchise network with multiple locations and a variety of needs and a corporate office that oversees the strategic direction of the business. To improve member loyalty, you first need to define member loyalty and understand what it entails. It starts by creating the right environment and incentives so that all your franchises can prioritize and serve existing members effectively.

Here’s a closer look at the strategic value of member loyalty and some of the most important strategies for helping your franchises build long-term member loyalty.

Member Loyalty: Your Most Valuable Strategic Asset

Member loyalty is so important that:

With all things “member” so directly tied to revenue and competitive advantage (or lack thereof), it’s no wonder that member loyalty is considered a business asset. If your members are satisfied, you can grow your franchise network and beat the competition. Boom. Economic value. If your members aren’t satisfied, you lose economic value and opportunities.

It’s not enough to say you want to make improvements, though. Fitness franchise owners and managers are busy with day-to-day operations. They have their hands full just keeping the gym or studio running. Given this reality, the corporate office plays an integral role in clearly laying out member loyalty objectives and supporting franchises in achieving them.

5 Strategies to Build Member Loyalty

Loyal members don’t just happen. It’s the result of thoughtful, high-level strategies and everyday practices that work together to attract new members and keep them coming back. Here are five practices you can put into place at the corporate and franchise level to help build member loyalty.

1. Invest in member-centered leadership

Member loyalty starts at the top. One of the most important things you can do is to invest in corporate leaders that value the member experience. Whether it’s hiring a Chief Experience Officer or stacking the rest of the C-suite with member advocates, when leaders are champions for putting the member at the center of business operations and objectives, it’s easier for everyone else to follow suit.

2. Congratulate and replicate

Some of your franchises already have member service figured out. Congratulate the ones that excel in member service and study what they’re doing so you can replicate their success. What practices are they routinely using to achieve high member loyalty? Do they have a loyalty program in place? What can other franchises learn from them about member retention? When you recognize and promote successful member-centered work, you give your entire network the tools they need to do the same at their own franchises and begin building member loyalty.

3. Award and reward

Franchise employees are on the front lines of member service. Encourage your franchisees to award and reward the employees and managers that go above and beyond for members. This type of positive reinforcement helps build a healthy workplace culture in which employees at all levels are empowered, supported, and rewarded for delivering excellent member service. When employees are confident and happy, they make members happy too which contributes toward a loyal member base.

4. Balance fixing with building

Member loyalty is a give-and-take of solving problems and building better experiences. Though it’s easy to do, don’t just focus on what’s going wrong or needs to be fixed. Spend equal time or more on what’s going right — and do more of that to increase member loyalty. You reap what you sow when you give quality attention to building and expanding positive member experiences. You get more positivity and happier members — which means you end up with fewer issues to fix down the road.

5. Find out what the problem is with NPS®

Of course, none of this is to say you won’t have dissatisfied members at times. If you see that members are unhappy, find out more. Franchises can do this by sending their members Net Promoter Score (NPS®) surveys, to find out the likelihood that members will recommend the business to others. This will give you a straightforward understanding of how your franchises are performing overall. This industry-standard survey also includes a follow-up question to elicit specific member feedback about what’s going well and what isn’t.

Using member feedback, franchises can pinpoint exact issues and come up with solutions that lead to overall improvements in member loyalty.

Get Started with Listen360

In your fitness franchise network, measuring member loyalty and optimizing the member experience can turn all your franchises into top performers. To get started, consider Listen360’s member engagement platform. Backed by an experienced team, Listen360 can help you survey and collect important member data and make smart business decisions that keep members coming back.

For more information, contact us today, and we’ll be happy to chat.

Posted on by Listen360

Orangetheory’s goal is clear. “To deliver proven fitness results for a healthier world, that’s our mission,” SVP of Operations Paul Reuter says, “and we can’t do that if we don’t listen to the voice of our consumer.”

Paul firmly believes that happy customers and positive word of mouth lead to healthy, sustainable growth – the kind of growth Orangetheory has enjoyed over the past several years. It takes more than a nice sentiment and a verbal commitment to ensure customer loyalty, though.

Orangetheory has implemented meticulously monitored metrics, rigorous service standards, and consistent accountability over the years to ensure customers continue to sing its praises. The name of the game, Reuter says, is “customer-centric feedback that’s not only archived but also aggregate in nature.” He adds that Orangetheory has a finely tuned customer feedback engine humming smoothly now, but installing one is a daunting task, and it certainly did not start out this way.

Enter: NPS® surveys

Net Promoter Score (NPS®) surveys are one way to measure and respond to your customers’ experiences. Implementing these surveys helped Orangetheory gather invaluable insights to maintain and improve customer satisfaction and ultimately boost brand reputation and performance (Orangetheory’s annual revenue is estimated at 1.8B and growing).

What is an NPS® survey?

An NPS® survey is an industry-standard survey that quantifies customer loyalty into a score that can range from -100 to 100. In addition, NPS® utilizes a follow-up question where customers can explain their reasoning for the score they provided.

These surveys can be conducted through various online platforms, email, or SMS. Listen360 offers a streamlined customer engagement platform using industry best practices and supports your fitness franchise throughout the NPS® survey process with our experts in the fitness franchise industry.

Why are NPS® surveys important?

NPS® surveys have several business advantages:

  • Predicts future business growth and profitability
  • Accurately evaluates customer loyalty
  • Identifies areas of improvement
  • Demonstrates that you value customer feedback
  • Provides quantifiable data that can be used to measure progress over time

An addition, running several NPS® surveys a year helps you benchmark against industry standards and compare multiple fitness franchise locations, ensuring you make informed decisions that enhance the customer experience.

4 NPS® survey best practices

The goal of an NPS® survey is to understand customer loyalty, identify areas of improvement, measure progress over time, and enhance the overall customer experience. But accomplishing this goal comes down to the practices you use throughout the process.

To get the highest level of accuracy and most value from your surveys, we recommend these four best practices.

1. Define your goals

Before you send your first survey, establish your goals. Why are you sending the survey in the first place? Whether you want to improve customer loyalty overall, uncover underperforming franchises, or just get a baseline for customer loyalty so you can evaluate growth over time, having well-defined goals will guide how, when, and how often you send surveys.

2. Keep communications short and to-the-point

Lengthy surveys can lead to respondent fatigue and lower completion rates. Experts recommend keeping surveys short, from one to three curated questions, ideally. This approach increases the likelihood of customers completing the survey and providing accurate feedback.

Additionally, keep communications about your NPS® survey short. When asking your customers for input, be clear and concise in your request and make it as easy as possible for them to access and complete the survey.

3. Act on the results

You’ve conducted an NPS® survey, gotten the results, and analyzed the responses…don’t stop there. It’s time to act.

Research from the London School of Economics, found a 7-point increase in NPS® is correlated to a 1% increase in growth. Take the learnings from your survey data and start to make changes in your business that will improve your score over time.

Start conversations with the franchises performing well and the ones that aren’t. Use insights from your network to optimize gaps. Suggest new procedures or controls to increase the value customers get from each franchise and consider how your corporate team can provide better support. Whatever you uncover in the data, it’s what you do with the information that matters.

4. Make use of your detractors and promoters

While your detractors are excellent sources for improvement, your promoters are excellent sources of online ratings and reviews. Take full advantage of both. Ask your detractors for more details and suggestions, and catch at-risk customers before they churn. Meanwhile, proactively request a Google or Facebook review from your promoters. This way, you are improving your franchises from the inside and boosting your brand.

How to build an NPS® survey

Listen360 can help you identify your business goals and develop and deploy targeted and effective NPS® surveys that help you achieve them. By getting this kind of feedback, you and your franchisees can make informed decisions to optimize your offerings and tailor them to meet customer expectations, leading to greater loyalty and increased customer retention.

Once you have a complete picture of your customer experience, you can translate it into actionable business decisions for your franchise.

NPS® surveys made easy

NPS® surveys play a vital role in understanding and improving customer loyalty within your fitness franchise network. If you’re ready for a partner that is as invested in your success as you are, get in touch with Listen360’s customer engagement experts and get your fitness franchise started on the right foot.

 

Posted on by Listen360

Using NPS® to Optimize the Customer Experience

How do you know if your franchisees are delivering an experience that keeps your customers coming back? More importantly, how do you know if your franchises do this consistently?

A Net Promoter Score (NPS®) is a quick and effective measurement and key to understanding customer satisfaction. NPS® utilizes one simple question, “On a scale of 0-10, how likely are you to recommend our company to your friends?” “0” means not likely, and “10” means extremely likely. By getting feedback from your customers on this question, you can assess how well you’re doing and where there’s room for improvement.

NPS® is one of the most important key performance indicators (KPIs) you can use to measure overall business performance. When used effectively, it can inform how you optimize the customer experience. As one expert puts it, “Your NPS® is a gateway to ensure that your focus aligns with what your customers like most about you.”

Here’s a breakdown of your NPS® score and how to increase it.

The Meaning of an NPS® Score

NPS® scoring works like this:

Promoters: On the 0-10 scale, those who answer in the 9-10 range are considered promoters. They’re loyal customers who are enthusiastic about your business and are happy to refer it to others.

Passives: Those who answer in the 7-8 range are considered passives. They’re generally satisfied with your business but not enough to promote it actively.

Detractors: Those who answer in the 0-6 range are considered detractors. They’re mostly unhappy customers who can hurt your business by talking about it negatively.

Your NPS® score is calculated by subtracting the percentage of detractors from the percentage of promoters (passives aren’t factored into your NPS® score). Scores can range anywhere from -100 to 100.

A “good” score is considered anything above 0, with scores in the 50-80 range considered excellent.

When evaluating your NPS® score, it’s helpful to understand your score relative to your industry. Is your score better than other fitness franchises? Worse? About the same? Regularly monitoring your NPS® score by comparing it to others in your industry helps to understand how you’re tracking against your competitors.

Good relative NPS® scores vary widely by industry. Some of the latest data for the fitness industry shows that for boutique fitness brands, 94 or above is a best-in-class score, with 88 or higher considered good and 72 or below considered low. For gyms, 77 or above is a best-in-class score, with 71 or above considered good and 32 or below considered low. These benchmarks can change as the industry changes in the market, so stay on top of typical industry scores to keep an edge against your competition,

Your score is also influenced by the size of your business. Large fitness franchises will have more customers to survey and more customer service headaches that can lead to more detractors than a smaller franchise network, which impacts the score.

Regardless of your current score, it’s important to focus on improving it. By prioritizing customer satisfaction and continually enhancing the customer experience, you demonstrate your commitment to providing exceptional service within your franchise network.

How to Increase Your NPS® Score

Your fitness franchise network encompasses many people and locations, each performing a little differently from the next. That’s why raising your franchise network’s NPS® score needs to be a team effort. To increase your score across your network:

1. Get every franchise on board

Communicate with all your franchises about your business goals for customer satisfaction and that you expect an all-hands-on-deck approach. Your entire network must be committed to improvement. Otherwise, your score won’t change—and it may even decrease.

2. Set KPIs for each franchise

Conduct NPS® surveys at the franchise level, then use that information to determine the KPIs for each franchise—for example, conversion rates, customer retention, or even employee retention. Let each franchise know which KPIs they should pay attention to, then hold them to it. The collective network can improve when every franchise knows exactly what they’re aiming for.

3. Map the customer journey

Figure out all the many ways in which your franchises interact with customers during the customer journey. Which touchpoints are easy and successful, and which create friction for your customers or reveal gaps in service? This can be an eye-opening exercise that gives you immediate insight into how you can improve customer experience.

4. Automate your NPS® surveys

Automating your surveys saves a ton of time, effort, and resources while also giving you valuable data about customer behaviors and preferences so you can find ways to improve your score. Once the data is collected, you can centralize the data in one accessible location with automated customer engagement software.

5. Ask for ratings at the right time

If there are touchpoints in the customer journey where you’re most likely to get a positive response, conduct quick customer surveys at those exact moments to get a fast, accurate read. The interaction will be fresh in the customer’s mind, so they’ll be able to give you an honest response which will help boost your score.

6. Act on the results

Take what you learn and put it into action. You can use the responses to the open-ended follow-up question to determine where your franchises are doing well and where there’s room for improvement. When you make the right improvements, you can survey again and increase your NPS® score even more.

Get Started with Listen360

In your fitness franchise network, measuring customer satisfaction and using the information to optimize the customer experience can boost your overall NPS® score and turn all your franchises into top performers. To get started, consider Listen360’s customer engagement platform. Backed by an experienced team, Listen360 can help you survey your franchise customers, collect important customer data, and make smart business decisions that keep customers coming back.

For more information, contact us today.

Posted on by Listen360

Even if your marketing budget is limited, there are still plenty of ways you can reach new customers and spread the word about your business. All it takes is a little creativity and a willingness to invest your time and energy to grow your business without going overboard on marketing spend. 

There’s also a silver lining to free or inexpensive marketing tactics: you can try out several to see which ones work for your business. That way, you don’t have to worry about investing in a new type of marketing that doesn’t actually reach the right customer base. Once you figure out which different approaches and specific channels are best for your business, you’ll know where to focus your marketing dollars in the future. 

To help get your brainstorming session started, we’ve listed 5 simple but effective marketing ideas below. Some are tried-and-true old school techniques, while others leverage the power of new media. 

Build on these ideas and tailor them to your business model and local community, and you’ll be on your way to a marketing strategy that brings in valuable customers without breaking the bank.

 

1. Create a customer referral program.

With limited wiggle room in your marketing budget, you may not be able to splash out on lead generation. However, if you have happy customers, you may be able to get them to bring in others who would also love your products or services. We all know word-of-mouth marketing works making it worth the time to find a way to inspire your customers to share their positive experiences with your brand.

Fortunately, in the age of social media, sharing is easier than ever. Consider introducing a customer referral program that rewards existing customers for referring new customers. The reward can be simple, but it should also be something of value, whether that’s a discount, complimentary service, or other incentive. Not only will you earn new customers, but you’ll also leave your current customers happy to maintain their relationship with your brand.

 

2. Conduct a customer satisfaction survey.

Surveys are great on several accounts. First, they provide you with essential data about your customer base. Second, they keep your brand in customers’ minds and, if they’ve had a positive experience, remind them of that experience. Finally, if a customer responds to a survey with a less than positive response, it gives you the opportunity to fix the problem and win back a favorable review. 

Surveys can be conducted in a number of ways: at your store front, through email, or through a post on social media. The key is to keep them short and sweet and ensure the questions you ask provide you with actionable data.

 

3. Do some one-to-one marketing.

One-to-one marketing is all about building relationships with individual customers, showing your appreciation by giving them personalized attention. Handwritten postcards and birthday emails are a few examples, but the options are endless and can be tailored to the specifics of your industry and the kinds of interactions your customers will value most. 

Best of all, this strategy can be quite cheap–all it takes is a bit of time and creativity. Plus, if you use customer engagement software, you can easily automate these interactions while still keeping them personalized.

 

4. Hold a business card drawing and follow up with an email newsletter.

Business card drawings are a classic marketing tactic for a reason. They take little to no effort for both the business and the customer, and there’s some fun suspense involved thanks to the luck of the draw. Just put out a large jar or fishbowl at your reception desk with a note about when the drawing will take place and what prize the lucky winner will receive.

By the end of the drawing, you’ll not only have a happy customer who’s just won a free product or service; you’ll also have plenty of email addresses on your hands. Add these to your mailing list and send out a monthly email newsletter using free tools such as MailChimp.

 

5. Make informative videos that increase brand exposure.

Consider delving into video to capture the attention of new customers. YouTube offers access to a huge audience. With the right content, you can increase exposure to your brand in a cost-effective manner.

You can choose to film videos on topics that are parallel to your industry or videos about your business directly. Many companies find success filming informative how-to videos or answers to frequently asked questions. All that’s needed to start shooting is a smartphone, meaning this is a tactic even businesses with the smallest budgets can try on for size.

Marketing is all about seeing what works for your business and how your audience responds. Adding a bit of variety to how you approach marketing can breathe some new life into your brand and inspire you to reach out to potential customers in different ways. Give these techniques a try to explore new areas of marketing while sticking to your budget.

 

Posted on by Listen360

Acquiring customers is an essential part of running a business. However, if you don’t retain some of the customers you acquire, you may find it hard to succeed over the long-term. When customers come back for repeat purchases, you’ll have a greater ROI and experience significant cost savings. 

Unfortunately, keeping customers isn’t always as simple as offering a great product or service. It takes a dedicated strategy and a penchant for relationship building to ensure customers remain engaged with your business and satisfied with the overall experience you provide.

That being said, there are plenty of methods you can use to build customer retention and keep satisfied customers coming back. Check out the different techniques your marketing team can experiment with to create a customer retention strategy that is just right for your business and your customer base.

5 Effective Customer Retention Tactics to Try

The best tactics for retaining customers allow you to establish lasting relationships and build brand loyalty. As a result, you’ll find that by working to retain customers, you’re also creating brand ambassadors and prompting the initial chain reaction of word-of-mouth marketing.

In other words, customer retention takes work, but the results are well worth the effort. Here are some tips to help you get started.

 

1. Begin by calculating your customer retention rate.

It’s always a good idea to know where you’re starting from so you can measure your progress. The formula for customer retention can show you how well you’re currently building relationships and encouraging customers to return for repeat purchases.

Here’s how to do the calculation:

  • Subtract the number of customers acquired during a set period of time from the total number of customers at the end of that period
  • Divide the result by the number of customers you had at the start of the period 
  • Multiply by 100

The final number will be the percentage of customers you retained during that period. For example, if the formula gives you the number 75, you’ve retained 75% of customers. 

2. Focus on making a good first impression.

Customers will base their future actions on their initial impressions of your business, making it crucial to leave a lasting and positive first impression. This starts with a frictionless purchase journey, but shouldn’t end there. 

Follow-up each new customer visit with a thank-you email that directs customers to helpful information about the product they’ve purchased and begins the process of building a relationship. 

3.Engage in ongoing communication with customers.

There are plenty of ways to keep up communication with customers after that first welcome email. Some popular options include email marketing, a monthly newsletter, and frequent social media posts. 

You can also utilize a communication calendar to track and plan interactions on the level of the individual customer. Visualizing your interactions over time will enable you to set up opportunities to cross-sell, launch promotions, provide relevant information, and eliminate roadblocks such as expired subscriptions. 

4. Launch a simple loyalty program. 

It’s obvious that the point of loyalty programs is to retain customers, but many businesses overlook this strategy when they’re struggling with customer retention. The truth is that these programs can have a major impact on customer satisfaction and loyalty. By rewarding customers for choosing your business, you’re giving them every reason to continue shopping with you.

The great thing about loyalty programs is they don’t need to be complicated, nor do the rewards need to be expensive. What’s important is that you provide something of value to those who choose to sign up.

5. Gather and analyze customer feedback.

The best way to improve your business in a way that affects customer behavior is to know how your customers currently feel about the experience you offer. Therefore, having a process for acquiring and processing customer feedback is essential for retaining customers. 

There are many ways to go about gathering customer feedback, and the one that’s best for your business will depend on your industry and how you communicate with customers. One popular and effective method used across nearly every industry is the Net Promoter Score® survey. This survey is quick and easy for customers to complete and provides actionable results that are simple for businesses to understand.

If you need help with building customer relationships, gathering feedback, and ultimately retaining more of the customers you acquire, consider getting started with a customer engagement platform such as Listen360. Our experienced team at Listen360 can help you collect important data from your customers and make smart decisions that keep them coming back.

Posted on by Listen360

As a business owner, your customers are the lifeblood of your business. After all, they’re the ones who not only generate revenue but also push you to innovate your products and services. 

When it comes to marketing, many businesses focus solely on the acquisition of new customers. This makes sense because, after all, successfully doing so is the main way to promote growth. Unfortunately, this focus can come at the expense of maintaining current customers and growing them into frequent, lifetime customers.

In many cases, encouraging current customers to stay loyal to your brand can actually be more profitable than simply increasing conversion rates with new customers. That’s because your current customer base has a 50% greater likelihood of trying one of your company’s new products. Furthermore, they’ll spend at a higher rate than new customers – up to 31% more. 

Despite the fact that these numbers indicate overall greater revenue from current customers than new customers, businesses still have a tendency to focus their marketing dollars on customer acquisition rather than customer retention. If you’re ready to make a change in your company’s marketing approach and start making customer retention a priority, the good news is there are several simple ways to give your current customers the attention and care they need to stay loyal to your brand.

Option 1: Take Advantage of the Flexibility of Email Marketing

To encourage repeat purchases, start where your customers are spending much of their time already – in their inbox. While this method may seem old-fashioned to those who believe social media marketing is the only way to reach people these days, the truth is Americans still spend hours each day in their email inbox. 

In fact, a recent study by Adobe showed respondents spent up to 5 hours a day checking email. Furthermore, consumers seem to prefer developing relationships with brands through email. According to Adobe’s survey, 50% of respondents stated a preference for receiving offers from brands via email over all other channels. 

This may be because email marketing is so flexible. Consumers know they can opt out at any time by clicking the unsubscribe link, or change their preferences to only receive certain types of emails. With this kind of trust already in place, taking advantage of this preference is an easy way to:

  • Send promotions to your current customers
  • Keep them engaged with your brand’s community
  • Ensure they’re always up to date with your product and service offerings

Option 2: Promote Loyalty Through a Customer Loyalty Program

Another tried-and-true method for retaining loyal customers is to implement an incentive-based customer loyalty program. When one-off customers realize they can enjoy rewards by choosing your brand in the future, they’ll have a reason to return. Many companies choose to focus their loyalty programs on providing discounts for frequent purchases, while others use them to promote special offers or package deals. 

When it comes to crafting your customer loyalty program, one thing to keep in mind is registering must be a seamless experience for the consumer. If a first-time customer is interested in signing up for the program but finds the process to be clunky or invasive, they won’t hesitate to opt out. While this won’t translate into an immediate loss of revenue, it could spell a loss of potential profit that should be avoided at all costs.

Option 3: Utilize Reviews as a Marketing and Data Acquisition Tool

If you want to promote repeat purchases, the key is to provide exactly what your customers are looking for. One of the best ways to gain insights into these specifications is by leveraging customer reviews and ratings. 

Although you may not think of reviews and ratings as a marketing tool, they are in fact one of the most powerful marketing tools you have at your disposal. Reviews are not limited to helping improve your reputation and online presence. They can also reinforce brand loyalty and give you detailed insights into what aspects of your products and services you should be highlighting in your marketing communications.

There are plenty of analysis tools and easy-to-use software platforms available that do the work of identifying trends and commonly used keywords in reviews. These technologies can help you more easily keep up with what customers are saying about your products, including flaws that need to be remedied and particular features customers appreciate. 

You can then use this data to resolve issues that may have otherwise gone unnoticed or adjust your services to better meet consumer needs. In doing so, you’ll be taking a huge step to keep your customers around for the long haul without draining your resources in the process.

Don’t miss out on the opportunity to turn your one-time customers into lifetime customers! With these tips, you can easily and inexpensively promote a trust-filled relationship with customers that translates into brand loyalty over time.

Posted on by Listen360

Whether your business is large or small, chances are you already have a presence online. However, being online is about so much more than posting your company’s contact information and service offerings. 

In this day and age, your brand’s online presence requires active management in order to ensure you’re maintaining a good reputation. While this may seem like a daunting task, building a positive brand reputation in the digital world actually opens up avenues for rewarding customer interactions and makes marketing your brand that much easier.

Now more than ever, people are using the virtual landscape to connect with businesses, provide feedback, and detail their experiences to other consumers. How your business responds to comments, questions, and feedback both positive and negative will have a huge impact on your online reputation. 

In turn, reputation management can affect your bottom line. By planning ahead and implementing a well-thought-out strategy for creating and maintaining your brand’s reputation online, you can reap all the benefits of doing business in the digital age.

Outlining a Strategy for Building Your Brand’s Online Reputation

Reputation marketing isn’t rocket science, but it does take some thinking, strategizing, and careful execution to get it just right. Having a team that is both clued in to the plan and equipped with savvy social media skills is essential for positively positioning your brand in the online world. 

In addition, it can be incredibly helpful to have access to reputation marketing software to streamline this process. This type of software also ensures managing your brand’s reputation doesn’t eclipse your focus on making your company the best it can be.

Below are four crucial steps for creating a positive brand reputation and making the most of your presence online.

Reviews Management

As a customer, whenever you search for a business online you likely first check the company’s star rating and Google reviews. Of course, you should assume all potential customers are doing the same for your business. 

Unfortunately, customers are more likely to leave a review after a negative experience than a positive one. For this reason, having a strategy in place to both respond to negative reviews and garner more positive reviews is incredibly important. 

To do this efficiently and effectively, you’ll need to:

  • Send review requests to all customers on the same day the transaction occurs
  • Respond to all reviews in a timely manner, preferably within 48 hours
  • Handle negative feedback with poise, offer an immediate resolution, and take the conversation offline whenever possible

Content Optimization

High-quality content is key to keeping your business ranking highly on search engine results pages. Regularly posting new content also promotes your brand as a positive and authoritative voice in the field. 

Invest in creating engaging and helpful content potential customers will actually read, watch, or listen to. You can also use testimonials as content to highlight the customer experience you provide and ensure positive reviews receive the attention they deserve.

While creating solid content is one of the most important parts of optimization, you shouldn’t overlook nitty gritty details like writing compelling meta titles and meta descriptions and using keywords appropriately. In addition, routinely check for broken links and go the extra mile to keep content compatible with mobile devices.

Social Media Activity

You may be hesitant to wade into the world of social media, but the truth is platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn offer tons of exciting features for businesses. Use these platforms to keep tabs on customers’ reactions to your products, services, and the experience you offer. 

You can also help positive testimonials go viral by regularly posting them to these pages. Since testimonials speak for themselves, you can keep your own input short and sweet while building your brand’s online presence with a few simple clicks.

Partnering with Experts

The Internet is a constantly changing space. Sometimes it can feel difficult to get a handle on all the best practices when you’re also trying to run your business and accommodate your customers. 

Reaching out to a company for help with brand reputation management can give your business the boost it needs. From monitoring online reviews to writing great content and getting guidance with responding to negative feedback, there’s a ton to be learned from experts in the industry.

 

Posted on by Listen360

Feedback from customers is often priceless. It can help you avoid making the same costly mistakes over and over again. It can also offer insight into profitable opportunities you may be overlooking. 

However, all too often companies fail to collect high-quality feedback they can actually use to implement change that positively influences the customer journey. In this day in age, when customers are more empowered than ever, having an effective customer feedback strategy in place is key.

If you’re looking for ways to walk the fine line of figuring out what your customers really want without feeling you’re constantly spamming them with survey requests, we can help. Check out our tips below to boost your customer feedback strategy with ease.

 

Tip 1: Set Up Live Chat Support 

The faster you can answer customers’ questions, the happier they will be. That’s why live chat has become a popular support tool for many companies. 

Chat isn’t only effective for giving great customer service. It can also be helpful for discreetly collecting customer feedback in real time and at a low cost. With a live chat function, you’ll quickly be able to assess and remedy issues before they become a major problem while also gaining insight into customers’ most common complaints.

 

Tip 2: Get Your Timing Right

Feedback at any time is great, but feedback immediately following a purchase is best. That way, the experience is still fresh on the customer’s mind, and they’re more likely to be willing to offer their opinion just after they’ve completed the purchase journey. The key here is to communicate to the customer that you’ll only take a minute of their time. Otherwise, they might feel the itch to move on with their day.

 

Tip 3: Offer Incentives

Let customers know you value their feedback by giving them something of value in return. One way to do this is to create a popup that appears right after a transaction to offer a discount on the next purchase in exchange for filling out a quick survey. 

Another option is to advertise to your social media followers that they can enter a raffle for a gift card or free product by completing a survey. Whatever incentive you choose to offer, the feedback you receive will be well worth the expense.

 

Tip 4: Keep It Simple

Do yourself and your customers a favor by making it easy for them to provide feedback. Surveys as a whole and the individual questions should be short and sweet.

With this approach, you only have the chance to ask a few questions, so you need to make sure they’re the right ones. Keep in mind that the quality of the answers you receive will reflect the quality of the questions you ask. For example, you’ll get a lot more information out of questions that allow for open-ended answers than simple yes-or-no responses. 

 

Tip 5: Use the Net Promoter Score

When it comes to keeping things simple, the Net Promoter Score (NPS®) is the ultimate solution. With one simple question – “How likely are you to recommend this company to a friend?” – you gain valuable feedback that instantly shows what your customers think of their experience. 

Responses are scored from 0, not at all likely, to 10, very likely. Your NPS® is then calculated as the average of all the responses. All businesses should consider taking advantage of this simple and effective measurement tool.

By implementing these five tips, you’ll be well on your way to building a customer feedback strategy that ensures you’re taking the right steps to meet your customers’ needs and can provide an experience they’ll rave about.

 

Posted on by Listen360

Even with 2020 in the rearview mirror, it’s readily apparent disruption levels in the retail industry will remain high for quite some time. Formerly reliable approaches to business simply won’t work in this new and rapidly changing environment. 

One of the most important things to realize is customers have gained a significant level of power, especially over the past year. Providing them with the best experience possible should be your top priority from here on out.

By saying consumers have power, we mean they have an incredible influence over the purchase choices of others. Thanks to social media and the reliability of word-of-mouth marketing, one happy buyer can result in increased demand for your product or service. Of course, the contrary is also true. The bottom line is customer retention and loyalty are the keys to business success.

Understand the Current Business Landscape with These Statistics & Key Takeaways

To offer a clearer picture of the current relationship between businesses and consumers, we’ve examined some of the latest studies on customer experience and retention so you can stay up to date on the best practices. Take a look at some of the most important takeaways for 2021 below.

1. The importance of customer service has leveled the playing field. According to Gartner, 81% of businesses compete primarily on customer experience.

2. Most companies understand the importance of going digital. In fact, Gartner reports that 67% of business leaders believe their business will no longer be competitive without embracing digital transformation. If you’re not part of this group, you may find you’re quickly left behind.

3.Understanding your Net Promotor Score (NPS®) is key. A study by Bain & Company suggests differences in Net Promoter Score explain between 10% and 70% of the differences in revenue growth between direct competitors.

4. Consumers value a great experience, perhaps more than they value a bargain. According to PwC, customers are willing to pay up to a 16% price premium for a great customer experience.

5. As a business, you can’t count on being given a second chance. With 32% of customers willing to walk away from a brand they love because of just one bad experience, there’s little room for error. (Source: PwC)

6. In a study by Salesforce, 80% of customers say the experience businesses provide is just as important as its products and services. Therefore, businesses should view the experience they offer as part of their product.

7. Fifty-nine percent (59%) of customers state tailoring future interactions based on past engagement is key to winning their business. As a result, it’s clear personalization is an essential part of a great experience. (Source: Salesforce)

8. Bad experiences often have greater ramifications than positive ones. Since customers tell an average of 9 people about positive experiences, but an average of 16 people about negative experiences, businesses need to go the extra mile to prevent negative outcomes. (Source: Deloitte)

9. Business Wire offers a slightly different statistic, claiming satisfied US customers will share their positive experience with 11 different people. As this is no small number, word-of-mouth marketing may be more important now than ever.

10. Loyalty and points-based programs are having a major heyday, with 72% of US adults belonging to at least one loyalty program. (Source: Oracle)

11. Americans aren’t just willing to sign up for loyalty programs. They actively enjoy taking part in them. eMarketer suggests 58.7% of internet users believe earning rewards and loyalty points is one of the most valued aspects of the shopping experience.

12. The vast majority of consumers are open to trading a certain level of privacy for greater personalization. Bond reports that 87% of Americans are willing to have various details of their activity tracked in exchange for more personalized rewards and brand experiences.

13. Consumers have high expectations for brands that go well beyond the value of a simple product or service. A full 75% of consumers expect brands to make more of a contribution to their well-being and quality of life. (Source: Havas)

14. Customer service can make or break customer retention rates. A total of 69% of US consumers say customer service is very important when it comes to their loyalty to a brand. (Source: Microsoft)

15. Repeat purchases are also significantly affected by customer service experiences, with 93% of consumers more likely to make repeat purchases at companies with excellent customer service. (Source: HubSpot)

16. Although customer service is of the utmost importance, it seems not all businesses have gotten the memo. HubSpot reports that more than half of consumers, 54% to be precise, say they’ve had at least one bad customer service experience in the last month.

17. Businesses are still trying to figure out how to leverage technology to provide the kind of personalized experience their customers desire. A whopping 69% of US marketers believe technology has made it harder for them to offer customers personalized experiences. (Source: Acquia) Therefore, it’s clear that getting the formula just right could put you miles ahead of your competitors.

18. Loyalty is not a trivial concept, but rather a lasting relationship that can have a huge impact on both your brand’s reputation and the bottom line of your business. InMoment reports that 77% of consumers say they stayed loyal to specific brands for 10 years or more.

19. While the above statistic shows loyalty can be long-lasting, it is never a guarantee to be taken for granted. HubSpot offers evidence that 50% of US consumers have left a brand they were loyal to for a competitor that better met their needs.

20. One repeat purchase does not make a loyal customer, especially in the eyes of the consumer. Yotpo claims 37% of consumers feel they need at least five purchases to consider themselves loyal to a brand.

21. Freebies may mean more to your customers than you think and can actually play a role in building relationships. AP News reports 61% of consumers think surprise gifts and offers are the most important way a brand can interact with them.

22. Your customers want to know you value their opinions. According to Microsoft, 77% of consumers say they favor brands that ask for and accept customer feedback.

23. You don’t have to box yourself into traditional methods of customer service. Why not take advantage of new platforms? After all, 65% of customers aged 18-34 feel social media platforms are an effective channel for customer service. (Source: Microsoft)

24. Millennials aren’t willing to put up with bad customer service and are more than ready to go elsewhere after a negative interaction. Business Wire shows 74% of this age group will switch to a different retailer if they receive poor customer service.

25. The past year has been tough for customer acquisition, leading many brands to shift their focus to customer loyalty and retention. As a result, 90.2% of US consumers feel equally or more loyal to a brand than they were a year ago. (Source: Yotpo)

These statistics can help you begin thinking in terms of customer experience and better understand how important it is to focus on consumers’ needs during every step of the purchase journey. While one small misstep can cost you dearly, investing in customer experience is proven to reap tremendous rewards.