Retention or acquisition?

When we talk about growth, we most often think of acquiring new customers: existing customers are not considered as real growth factors; and many managers are so focused on acquiring new customers that they do not think about implementing strategies to effectively meet the need to retain those they already have, yet it is much easier to sell to existing customers than to new prospects, so this can be very useful for the company's revenues, as Pareto's law also applies in business: 80%

 According to Bain and Co., a 5,% increase in customer retention can increase a company's profitability by 75,%, while Lee estimates that attracting new customers costs 5 times more than keeping an existing customer.     

 Of course, it is tempting to think that if your brand offers an excellent product or service and you offer a quality customer experience, customer loyalty will naturally follow, of course, by creating a welcoming atmosphere in the store, with music adapted to the brand and the desired atmosphere, pleasant lighting, friendly furniture, etc.

But customer loyalty is not an entitlement and must be worked on on an ongoing basis, which means setting up an effective loyalty program, which will seek to identify, track and reach those customers most likely to become loyal sources of revenue in the long term, not just "set up a loyalty card", but much more, such as offering special openings or private sales, or even products accessible only to customers with special status, why not create a points program, a bit like "Miles"?

Be careful though to offer discounts for loyal customers: an IBM study showed that for the majority of customers who follow a brand on social networks, the reason for this follow-up is to be informed of discounts and rebates, so the Armani store of the outlet One Nation, near Paris, regularly sends promotional messages by SMS to make its loyal customers benefit from even more attractive offers, with a transformation rate that is all the more positive because the discounts are high.

However, anything that leads to favourable treatment increases the likelihood of the customer returning: car rental company Hertz has set up an Elite program that allows customers to select their specific vehicle at the time of booking, and to present themselves first at the counter even if there is a queue, while American Express offers its Platinum customers special offers, described in a luxurious brochure that highlights the new and special nature of the events on offer.

A poor understanding of customer opinion is a sure sign that you are mistaken in your actions and it is not an illusion; according to Bain and Co, 80 % of the companies surveyed believe that they offer quality service to their customers, but only 8% of their customers agree!

To better understand customers, marketing departments must therefore focus more on the actual behavior of customers, not on validating assumptions made in offices against certain demographic groups or SSCs. Data collection and analysis makes it possible to understand the customer's past and current behavior and thus better predict future behavior to develop a tailored strategy.

A loyal customer can also be invited to online focus groups to develop the loyalty offer, technological tools also exist to track the customer's time in the store and identify his actions, which are then linked to the shopping cart, in order to collect data, as much data as possible in order to take advantage of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning methods that will make it possible to identify trends that could have escaped the sales staff or marketing people, from this data and the new information collected, we will be able to develop them.

Thus, Listen To See is working on tools that will be integrated into its Music Admix offer, which will make it possible to develop the music broadcasted according to the context as indicated by the AI tools: if the music broadcast in the store must correspond to the brand, it does not necessarily have to be always identical from one hour to the next of the day, nor from one day to the next; in the future, based on the recognition of the number of people in the store and their type or age, it will be possible to