Customer retention

Sara Heegaard September 12, 20232 minute read

Sara is a copywriter focused on lifting up Recharge's merchants, partners, and their customers. Before Recharge, her past lives included writing and editing at four different subscription... Full bio

What is customer retention?

Customer retention refers to the ability of a company to keep current customers with their business. For subscription brands, having an effective customer retention strategy is particularly important, as the subscription business model depends on recurring revenue. Having a high customer retention rate increases customer lifetime value for your business, improving customer loyalty and customer satisfaction. Retaining your most loyal customers can also help improve average order value (AOV) for your online business.

Customer retention strategies 

There are a number of strategies your brand can use to improve customer retention. Investing in analytics and collecting customer feedback in your customer retention program are both valuable tools for establishing a baseline for your business. Make sure you effectively set customer expectations for your products and services through your messaging and imagery. 

Tracking key metrics over time—such as customer lifetime value, customer churn, customer acquisition costs, etc.—can help you identify trends in customer behavior and business performance and assess the effectiveness of your retention strategies. Another business strategy for retaining existing customers is to offer a customer loyalty program. 

Retain customers with the right strategies

Subscription businesses can increase customer retention when they empower customers to manage their own subscriptions. For example, make it easy for an existing customer to skip or reschedule a delivery, or swap or add on a new product or service to an order, without having to engage your customer support team. This creates a more seamless experience for the subscriber and lessens the chance that they will churn out of your business. 

With the right loyalty-focused strategies, your brand can improve upon retaining customers and strengthening customer relationships, even as the number of customers you serve increases. Continually tracking customer retention metrics will also ensure your brand is headed in the right direction.