SaaS Retention Strategy: 20 Tips To Keep Your
Customers Coming Back
Software-as-a-service (SaaS) retention strategies are important because they help keep your customers engaged with your product or service. The goal is to ensure that your customer base continues to grow and that your customers are using your product on a regular basis. There are a number of different ways to approach SaaS customer retention, but the following 20 tips are some of the most effective.
But before we go to the list of strategies to keep your customers engaged, let’s look at the main elements of a successful SaaS retention strategy.
What Makes a SaaS Customer Retention Strategy Successful?
There are a few key ingredients that go into making a SaaS retention strategy successful.
1. A clear understanding of your customer base
Who are your customers, and what do they need from your product or service? Once you understand your customer base, you can start to develop a retention strategy that caters to their specific needs.
2. Clear goals for your retention strategy
What do you want to achieve? Do you want to increase customer engagement? Do you want to reduce the customer churn rate? Once you have set your goals, you can start to develop a plan of action to achieve them.
3. A clear understanding of your product or service
What are its key features? What are its selling points? What makes it unique? Once you understand your product, you can start to think about how you can keep your customers engaged with it.
4. A plan for communicating with your customers
How will you keep them informed about new features or updates? How will you provide customer support? What channels will you use to communicate with your customers?
5. Clear monitoring and measuring metrics
Are your goals being met? Are your customers engaged? Are they using your product on a regular basis? How’s the customer churn rate? What’s the customer retention rate? By monitoring and measuring the results of your retention strategy, you can make necessary adjustments to ensure that it is as effective as possible.
Now that we’ve looked at the main elements of a successful SaaS retention strategy, let’s take a look at 20 tips for keeping your customers engaged.
How to Keep Your Customer Engaged
1. Understand your customer’s needs and wants
The first step is to truly understand what your customers need and want from your business. Oftentimes, when we’re so focused on our own needs as business owners or managers, we tend to forget about the needs of our actual customers. By making a concerted effort to learn more about their preferences and concerns, you will be better able to tailor your services or products to meet their specific needs and desires.
To better understand your customers, consider conducting customer surveys or interviews on a regular basis. This will give you valuable insights into their overall Satisfaction levels as well as what specific areas they would like to see improvement in.
2. Offer a valuable product or service
It seems like a no-brainer, but in order to keep your SaaS customers engaged, you need to offer them a product or service that they perceive to be valuable. This could mean offering a unique product or service that meets customer satisfaction. It could also mean offering a competitively priced product or service that provides them with a good customer lifetime value.
In order to determine what your customers believe to be valuable, it’s again important to survey or interview them on a regular basis. This will give you valuable customer feedback that you can use to make changes or improvements to your offerings.
3. Keep your pricing in check
No one wants to feel like they’re being overcharged for a product or service. In order to keep your customers engaged, it’s important to make sure that your SaaS pricing is in line with what they perceive to be fair and reasonable. This doesn’t mean that you have to be the cheapest option out there, but you do need to make sure that your prices are competitive.
You can learn a lot about your customer’s perceptions of your pricing by again conducting surveys and interviews. You can also look at industry benchmarks to see how your pricing stacks up against other similar businesses.
4. Provide excellent customer service
When customers feel like they’re being treated well, they’re more likely to remain engaged with your business. This means providing them with excellent customer service whenever they have a need or concern.
There are a number of different ways to provide excellent customer service, but some of the most important include being responsive, helpful, and professional. You can also create additional touchpoints by proactively reaching out to customers on a regular basis.
5. Communicate regularly
Customers need to feel like they’re in the loop when it comes to your business. This means that you need to communicate with them on a regular basis, letting them know about new products or services, changes to your pricing or policies, and anything else that might be relevant to them.
There are a number of different ways to communicate with your customers, but some of the most effective include email newsletters, social media posts, and blog articles.
You should also host customer events on a regular basis. This could be an annual conference, a monthly webinar, or even just a coffee meetup.
6. Make it easy to use your product or service
If customers find your product or service difficult to use, they’re going to quickly become disengaged. In order to keep them engaged, it’s important to make sure that your product or service is as user-friendly as possible.
This could mean offering clear and concise instructions, easy-to-understand menus or interfaces, and 24/7 customer support. It could also mean making sure that your product or service is compatible with the devices and software that they’re using.
Providing a concierge on-boarding experience for new customers is also a great way to ensure that they have a positive experience with your product or service from the start. This means walking them through the setup process, helping them to configure their account, and providing customer support along the way.
You should also offer free training and education to customers who want to learn more about your product or service. This could be in the form of webinars, email courses, or even one-on-one coaching.
7. Get feedback and take action
It’s important to get feedback from your customers on a regular basis. This will give you valuable insights into what they like and don’t like about your product or service. It will also give you an opportunity to make changes or improvements based on their feedback.
There are a number of different ways to get feedback from your customers, but some of the most effective include surveys, interviews, and focus groups. The key is to make it easy for them to provide feedback and to actually take action on the feedback that you receive.
8. Be transparent
Customers need to feel like they can trust you and your business. This means being as transparent as possible when it comes to your pricing, policies, and procedures. It also means being honest about any issues or problems that you’re having.
Being transparent builds trust, which is essential for keeping customers engaged.
9. Show them that you care
Customers need to feel like they’re more than just a number to you. This means showing them that you care about their experience with your product or service. It could also mean going above and beyond to help them with a problem or concern.
There are a number of different ways to show your customers that you care, but some of the most effective include being responsive, offering discounts or freebies, and personalizing your interactions.
You should also implement a customer success management program to proactively help customers achieve their goals. This could involve regular check-ins, providing resources and support, and offering discounts or incentives.
Lastly, being involved in the community by participating in forums, social media, and other online channels will help you to build relationships with customers and potential customers.
10. Keep it fresh
Customers can quickly become bored or disengaged if they feel like they’re seeing the same thing over and over again. In order to keep them engaged, it’s important to keep your product or service fresh. This could mean adding new features or benefits, changing up your marketing campaigns, or even redesigning your website.
Likewise, you also need to make it easy for your customers to upgrade to the latest version of your product or service. This could mean offering discounts, free trials, or other incentives.
11. Say thank you
One of the simplest but most effective ways to keep customers engaged is to say thank you. According to New Voice Media, customers switch products and services mainly because they feel unappreciated.
Saying thank you shows your appreciation for their business and makes them feel valued. It’s a small gesture that can go a long way in maintaining a good relationship with your customers. Moreover, it doesn’t have to be complicated. It could be as simple as sending a thank-you note after a purchase and offering a discount for referrals.
12. Reward loyalty
Loyalty should be rewarded. This could mean offering discounts, incentives or freebies to customers who have been with you for a long time. It could also mean giving them exclusive access to new products or services.
Whatever you do, make sure that every loyal customer feels appreciated. According to a study by Bain & Company, it costs six to seven times more to acquire a new customer than it does to retain an existing customer. So it’s important to make sure that you’re doing everything you can to keep your existing customers happy.
13. Make it easy to leave
If a customer is not happy with your product or service, it’s important to make it easy for them to leave. This means having a clear and concise return or cancellation policy. It also means not putting up any barriers to leaving, such as requiring a lengthy contract.
14. Celebrate successes and learn from failures
It’s important to celebrate your successes and learn from your failures. This shows your customers that you’re constantly trying to improve your product or service. It also shows that you’re willing to listen to feedback and make changes based on it.
15. Keep in touch
Even if a customer is no longer using your product or service, it’s important to keep in touch. This could mean sending them periodic emails, staying in touch on social media, or even just sending a holiday card. Keeping in touch shows that you care about them and their experience, even if they’re no longer using your product or service.
16. Be available
Customers need to know that you’re available when they need you. This means having customer service available 24/7, being responsive to questions and concerns on social media, and offering live chat on your website.
17. Keep your promises
One of the quickest ways to lose a customer’s trust is to break a promise. This could be something as simple as not delivering on a promised discount or not following through on a customer experience issue. Whatever the promise is, make sure that you’re able to keep it.
18. Be consistent
Customers need to be able to rely on you. This means being consistent in your product or service, as well as in your pricing, policies, and procedures. It also means being consistent in the way you treat your customers.
19. Offer a Free Trial
A free trial is an excellent way to introduce new customers to your product or service. It gives them a chance to experience what you have to offer without commitment. Be sure to communicate the value of your product or service during the free trial period so that customers understand what they’re getting before they make a decision to subscribe.
20. Get Personal
In a world where technology is increasingly impersonal, customers crave human interaction. You can show your customers that you care by personalizing your interactions with them. This could mean sending a handwritten thank-you note, calling them by name, or remembering their preferences.
You may also use gamification to encourage customers to engage with your product or service. This could involve awarding points for completing certain tasks, offering discounts for reaching certain milestones, or even giving away prizes.
Final Thoughts
Whether you’re just a new B2B SaaS company and trying to build a customer base or you’ve been in the game for a while and are looking for ways on retaining customers, these 20 tips should help. Keep an eye on our blog, as we plan to release more posts on SaaS growth marketing strategies from customer acquisition to retention in the near future.
