Are your best customers silently slipping away?

Because it’s rarely about the product alone. Often, it’s because you’re not making customers happy. We’ve seen plenty of examples where the product was really, really good, but the company’s management and employees weren’t working with customers’ subjective perception of the product. One example I love to mention is Rory Sutherland’s story about the British government spending billions of pounds to cut railway travel time by 30 minutes, instead of making the journey more pleasant. People might have actually wanted the trip to last longer if the experience itself had been enjoyable. That shows how much perceived service and experience matter beyond the product alone.

That depends on a number of factors. One common issue is not engaging with customers proactively. But more importantly, depending on the product, you may need to change your strategy. I really like the Nespresso example: their capsules are only compatible with their own machines. Once you buy the machine, you have to keep buying capsules from that brand. That’s product design. While we don’t design products, we help design strategies that encourage repeat business, whether by introducing new products or finding other ways to keep customers coming back.

Often, it’s not the amount of work but the lack of process. For example, we worked with a company getting inquiries from email, their offline store, and phone. They had several mailboxes, and it was chaotic. We implemented a service desk tool to centralize all inquiries in one place, prioritized by first in, first out. Suddenly, the team had visibility, no more task-jumping, and far less stress. They actually ended up with more capacity than expected. Clear processes usually improve productivity more than tools or automation alone. Once the process is structured, you can add automation like knowledge bases supplemented with AI chatbots, so customers can instantly get answers without touching your support staff.

You’ll need reporting in place. Metrics like churn rate, repeat purchase rate, customer lifetime value, and support response times are key. To track them, you’ll likely need to digitalize other areas of your business. As you do that, you’ll discover missing processes or standard operating procedures, which will improve both transparency and operations. When we start working with clients, we try to implement measurements for our work, but often companies don’t have metrics in place yet. That means sometimes we can only measure progress after changes are implemented, but it’s still measurable.

No, not necessarily. What you need first is a strategy. We’ll check if you’re registering inquiries, measuring retention, and whether a customer strategy exists. Software is only a result of that work—the final step to automate and scale. If you start with software, you often end up with gimmicky automations that add no real value. For example, automated “your inquiry is important to us” responses. Everyone hates them, and they don’t solve the issue. You have to start with process first, then implement software.

It depends on your sales cycle. If you sell consumer goods with short cycles, like coffee machine consumables, you might see results in a month or two. If you sell something complex like windows, doors, or facades for large construction sites, your sales cycle could be 16 to 20 months, so you’ll only see retention results after the first cycle is complete. The shorter the cycle, the faster the results.

Customer service is providing after-sales or pre-sales support—answering questions, processing refunds, exchanging products, or helping customers use the product. Customer retention is making sure those customers keep coming back to you instead of going to competitors.

No. Discounts and loyalty programs are only a small part of retention strategy. For example, Lidl doesn’t even have loyalty cards in many countries. Instead, they focus on unique value: products no other stores carry, at prices competitors can’t match. In the Netherlands, they sell certain fish products only available at Lidl. Customers come for those, and while they’re there, they buy other products too. That’s a “locomotive product” strategy, where one flagship product drives overall sales.

Retention strategies work for everyone. As a small company, you’re even more vulnerable, since you don’t have the big marketing budgets of large corporations. You need to be very thoughtful about how you keep customers, and retention strategies can give you a huge advantage.

While industries have their quirks, most processes can be standardized. For example, accounting works the same way for the IRS regardless of industry. Money is money. Similarly, customer support is still customer support, and sales processes are still sales processes. The tools and content may vary, but the underlying approach is universal.

We love when customers already have systems in place. It gives us data to start with. If your system is modern and meets the requirements we set during collaboration, we’re happy to use it. That way, we don’t need to spend extra effort on technical implementation, and we can focus on strategy and results.