5 Simple Ways to Improve Client Loyalty & Retention

Every digital marketing agency is looking for those perfect, high-ticket clients. But how do you keep those clients happy and loyal to you?
What’s stopping your clients from leaving you for another agency? 

It can be a scary thought to know that at any time the high-ticket clients you worked so hard to get can pack up and jump ship to someone else, without any real reason or notice. And before you know it, your cash flow is gone!

Today, we’re going to dive into 5 simple ways you can keep your clients happy and get them to stay with you for the long haul. 

#1: Design a Roadmap

Map out a plan for how long this client relationship will last.

Discuss what steps you’re working towards and how you plan on meeting each deadline.

Create goals and milestones to show when those goals have been met. Ensure that you have a process of ending your client relationship in a positive way. You never know when they might want to use your services again.

 #2: Set Expectations Early

There’s nothing worse than a client who constantly asks questions, makes unreasonable demands and gives vague instructions on what they want done, with no defined deadline.

To avoid this, you need to set expectations early in your client/agency relationship. That way they know when to let you do your job, but that the project will be delivered on time and it will be done well.

This will also help refocus them on putting their energies into other parts of their business while you work on their campaign.

 #3: Keep Them in The Loop

Well, really… Keep each other in the loop!

Keep in contact with your clients via meetings, calls, messages, emails or however you and your client like to communicate. This is vital for both you and your client.

Here are a few steps to creating a client meeting and what to expect, so things can continue running smoothly:

• Set an agenda for each meeting.
• Make sure everyone knows the meeting time, date and place (or platform). This is especially important if you’re in different time zones.
• Determine deadlines for future projects.
• Discuss potential obstacles that might pop up along the way.
• Talk about expectations for both you and your client.
• Be flexible but also firm about how you like to work.
• Arrange the next meeting date time and place .

#4: Find Out if Your Clients are Happy

The point here is to be upfront with the client and ask them directly if they’re happy with your services.

This will get them thinking in a positive way as they’ll feel you want to improve & deliver your best work, it’s also great feedback for you, so you can constantly adapt to make improvements in the future. 

If the clients aren’t happy ask them for feedback anyway, they will still appreciate their voice being heard. And it gives you the opportunity to fix any problems so you can sustain the relationship.

#5: Use the Reciprocity Rule

In social psychology, reciprocity is a social rule that says people ought to repay, in kind, what another person has provided for them; that is, people give back (reciprocate) the kind of treatment they have received from another.

So basically, small acts of kindness create a feeling of obligation in a person to want to repay that person with another kindness or gift.

An example of this would be your agency sending a random gift like chocolates,tickets to a game or event or something else of value to your client, just because.

This doesn’t mean you have to do it every week, it is something you would do at random as a little surprise, it could even be adding something extra in the project that they’ve been wanting to do. This will show that you’re going above and beyond and can make your relationship more valuable to them.

Bonus Tip: Deliver Easy to Understand Reports

When you use FunnelDash to manage your clients’ campaigns. You can take screenshots of your dashboards and send those to your client on a weekly basis so they can see exactly what’s going on with their campaign, how much they’ve invested and how much they’ve made.

Using FunnelDash gives you two advantages over other agencies:

1. You don’t spend hours and hours going throug your clients’ campaign data to create a pivot table report in a spreadsheet that your client may or may not be able to understand.

   Instead, you’ll be able to pull this report in a few minutes, take that screen shot, attach it to an email and send it off, leaving you with more time to manage your clients’ campaigns and your own business.

2. Sending a weekly report keeps your clients happy, and prevents them from constantly asking how their campaign is going.

Sign up for a free 14-day trial of FunnelDash to see how easy reporting can be.