How to Drive Customer Retention By Celebrating Customer Success

Online businesses should be celebrating the wins of their customers. It's not always easy to deliver on customer expectations, but it is also one of the best ways to differentiate yourself from your competition and build customer loyalty.

Why Businesses Should Celebrate Their Customers’ Wins

Retention Marketing is about turning your customer’s success stories into a tool. Find, research, and tell the story of your customer. By doing this you will create a connection with your potential new customers through the people who are just like them that are already using your product or service.

Focus on finding stories that are worth telling and then tell them in an engaging way that resonates with new customers. Customer success stories also help to build trust between the online business and their potential customers, which can lead to increased sales. It is important to be strategic with this type of marketing tactic because not every story will resonate with your audience.

5 Ways to Get Meaningful Feedback for Customer Testimonials

1. Ask for feedback.

Have you heard the old adage “only a squeaky wheel gets oiled?” The best and easiest way to get reviews and customer success stories is to ask for them! We recommend using the questions outlined in our free eBook: 7 Strategies for Turning Visitors into Customers.

2. Be open to constructive criticism.

Not everyone who gives you feedback will give you positive reviews. Take any negative review you get and learn from that customer's experience so you can help them and future customers. It is also important to respond publicly to these comments because it shows that you care about what your customer experienced, even if you messed up.

3. Start a customer testimonials program and create a testimonial page for your website.

You're likely to have customers who are willing to share their experiences with you. If you've worked hard for them and they are happy with the work, they may be willing to say so.

A testimonial page – or a section on your website for this purpose - not only provides social proof but it also helps potential customers see themselves working with you because they know that other people like them have succeeded.

Additionally, a testimonial page is a great way to connect with your existing customers on a personal level and a well-written testimonial is an excellent example of how you can delight your clients. You can also prominently place testimonials in a slider on the homepage of your website to start building trust immediately.

4. Share customer success stories in your blog content, your newsletter, social media posts, and other marketing vehicles.

By sharing customer success stories, you can not only inform your audience about the benefits they are able to get from your products/services but also inspire them. One of the ways that brands can do this is by using customer success stories on their blog content, newsletters, social media posts, and other channels.

Customer success stories provide transparency into the customer’s experience with your business and can be used to establish trust with potential customers. Customer success stories should not only show what happened but also emphasize what was done right by the company to create such a good experience for the customer. This will help potential customers feel more confident about doing business with your company. For more ideas on how to write customer success stories, check out this POWR success story.

5. Offer incentives for customers who want to share their success story with you or on social media channels like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc.

As the title suggests, the importance of incentives in marketing is something that is not often talked about. However, it can be a crucial component of any successful campaign for testimonials.

Since everyone loves getting free gifts and discounts, this should be utilized as a tool to incentivize customers to share their success stories. For example, look at corporate giveaways with brands like Starbucks or Nike where people can get products from them if they post on social media or share their story with you. Or if someone reviews many businesses on Yelp they get invited to secret events. Little giveaways like these will help you in getting more success stories.

The purpose of incentives for customers who want to share their success story with you or on social media is to encourage them to take the time and effort in doing so. Be careful that you are enticing them solely for a positive review, otherwise they will be less likely to share their experience with others and less likely to give you an honest testimonial.

Celebrating your customers is important for every business and should be at the forefront of all your efforts

"Happy customers are your biggest advocates and can become your most successful sales team." - Lisa Masiello

Every business needs to understand that the customer is always right. Furthermore, potential customers give the opinions of your current customer far more weight in deciding on whether or not to purchase from you. This should be at the forefront of every business’s mind and in their actions. They should go above and beyond for their customers in order to create a strong brand image and a loyal following. By sharing the wins you create with your customers you will help potential new customers know that they can win with your product or service, too.