Businesses that can’t retain customers usually aren’t around for very long. For most companies, convincing customers to keep coming back is just as important as finding new customers, if not more important. What can businesses do to keep their customers coming back, instead of constantly scrambling to find new ones to replace them?

Let’s take a look at three customer retention strategies that have been proven to work.

Engage with Customers

If you’re counting on customers to keep patronizing your business entirely of their own volition, then you’re probably losing lots of customers that you don’t have to. Many businesses assume that once a consumer is made aware of their business, they will keep coming back without any prompting.

Yet, even happy customers often need additional engagement to keep them coming back; many might not even realize that you have additional products and/or services they’re looking for. Instead of waiting around for customers to come back, find ways to keep in contact with them and give them an additional nudge to patronize your business even more.

Courtesy Counts

The average consumer interacts with hundreds of businesses every year, and most of the encounters between them take the form of simple monetary transactions. Even when the customer is satisfied, he or she usually won’t mistake commerce for some sort of friendship or deep bond between them and the companies they buy from.

The companies they do form a deeper bond with are the ones that offer them something more than cold commerce. What can your business offer customers that will make them appreciate your presence in their life more? It can be anything from a discount for customer loyalty to simple things like courtesy calls to check in with them or holiday cards letting them know you appreciate them.

Improve Customer Service

All the courtesy and engagement in the world won’t help your business if customers are unsatisfied with your customer service. Perhaps more than anything, how your business treats its customers and how quickly it responds to their requests and concerns determines whether or not they keep doing business with you.