If you’re just now joining us in this series, we’re highlighting the traits of smart printers. Here’s what we’ve covered up to this point:
- Smart printers anticipate and accept change.
- Smart printers know and understand their audience.
- Smart printers embrace their different.
- Smart printers value and pursue marketing.
One of the most notable traits of a smart printer, though, lies in where they put their focus. Smart printers don’t set off to bigger and better things without first capitalizing on what’s in front of them.
Smart printers focus on their existing customer base.
Why Retention Matters
While attracting new customers is important and necessary, smart printers know that without a solid, existing customer base, it’s a whole lot harder to be successful in your growth efforts.
Focusing on customer retention offers the increased revenue a smart printer needs to expand their business, and with a distinct advantage:
Customer retention practices are typically more affordable, more profitable, and yield a better return.
Consider the following from Invesp:
- It costs five times as much to attract a new customer than to keep an existing one.
- The probability of selling to an existing customer is 60-70%, while the probability of selling to a new prospect is 5-20%.
- Increasing customer retention rates by 5% can increase profits by 25% to 95%.
Great Retention Equals Great Service
Smart printers have learned that customers won’t continue to shop with a print company that doesn’t serve them well.
So, they took a look at their customer service. Here are some simple things smart printers do to ensure every interaction with their company is a good one.
- They make it personal, using the customer’s name and using their own to create a personable conversation.
- They express gratitude for any feedback, whether it’s good, bad, or indifferent because all feedback offers an opportunity for growth.
- They answer questions concisely and clearly. Or, in other words, they ditch the print jargon and explain things in a way their audience will understand.
Lastly, a smart printer’s secret weapon in customer service is empathy. When they put themselves in the shoes of their customers, they’re able to craft the perfect experience where every customer or print buyer feels the desire to come back to their shop.
Smart printers continually work for better customer service, looking for ways to make the print ordering process easier for their print buyers.
How Smart Printers Boost Customer Retention
Great customer retention doesn’t happen automatically. It’ll take some work.
Here are four things smart printers do to boost their customer retention:
Smart printers share their value.
Have you ever heard something like this: “Wow! I had no idea you guys did that!”
It’s hard to be effective if people don’t know that what you have to offer will help them solve their print order struggle. This is why smart printers reach out to their print buyers to let them know about everything that will bring them value. Remember, this about the value THEY get. It doesn’t matter that it will make your life easier; it matters that it makes THEIR life easier.
Smart printers cross-sell and up-sell.
Whether print buyers order online, in-person, or over the phone, smart printers look for ways to offer additions to what is already being purchased.
Fast-food chains are an excellent example of how this is done. How many times in your life have you heard, “Would you like to supersize that?” at McDonald’s or “Would you like to upgrade to a small Blizzard® for $1.00 more?” from Dairy Queen.
Smart printers use these same tactics for things like:
- Adding letterhead and envelopes to a business card order or envelope seals to an envelope order.
- Upselling to a larger quantity “Would you like to upgrade to 1,000 business cards for only $X amount more?”
- Adding bindery services: “Would you like us to fold those for you for an additional $X?”
Smart printers are sales-minded.
To solidify a customer base, smart printers recognize the need for a solid sales effort.
What does this look like?
Smart printers stay connected to their audience through regular content, such as monthly direct mail campaigns, daily social media posts, or regular email campaigns.
But they don’t stop there.
Smart printers make themselves sticky.
Smart printers understand that securing customer retention means making themselves sticky, so it’s too hard or too much of a hassle for a print buyer to go anywhere else to order printing.
How do they earn this stickiness?
By scheduling demos to walk their customers through the solutions on their website that will make their print ordering experience better. They train their audience on things like:
- How to set up Company and Customer Accounts
- Easy reordering through the Reorder Forms Library
- Branded storefronts through Private Label Websites
All of these types of things take work at the beginning to get an audience on board. But, smart printers know that the effort is not wasted. When the print ordering process becomes quicker and easier for their print buyer, they begin to have regular, repeat business coming through their website.
