Continuous client work is the lifeblood of any agency. However, while acquiring new clients and scaling is exciting, retaining your existing clients is a much cheaper way to establish consistent, recurring revenue.
With that in mind, this ebook is your guide to achieving a high rate of client retention. We’ll be exploring five unique strategies that, when combined, work together to foster trust, satisfaction, and loyalty among clients.
You’ve heard it said before, “relationships are key.” When working with small and medium-sized business clients, a strong relationship is even more important. These businesses are looking for more than a website or some digital marketing services; they need a partner that can help them thrive online.
Around 60% of business leaders told Zendesk that high-quality customer service improves customer retention. Consumers agree. Nearly 95% of American consumers said that customer support representatives speaking to them in a way that makes them feel valued affected their decision to continue doing business with the company.
While great customer service can go a long way in improving retention, poor customer service can just as easily cost you clients. PWC found that, in the US, 59% of consumers will walk away from a brand after several bad experiences. If you’re unlucky, 17% of consumers say they’ll walk away after just one bad experience.
So you know that strong relationships should be a cornerstone of your retention strategy, but how do you form those relationships?
Unless you’re an especially boutique agency, you likely work with SME clients across a wide range of verticals. Get to know their industry! Developing a sense of their sector, their individual business, and their unique challenges can go a long way in boosting your agency’s credibility and further cementing yourself as a trustworthy partner.
For your bigger clients, consider going the extra mile by learning some of their industry-specific jargon. Your clients will have a hard time leaving an agency that speaks their language.
Your clients want to feel important, so lean into that. Reach out at consistent, set intervals to discuss the work you’re doing and to make sure that they have all the tools and information they need to succeed.
Attempt to remind your clients about your agency as often as possible, especially when they’re interacting with the services you’ve provided. Analytic reports, for instance, should include your logo right on top. Even when you work with third-party vendors, you should try to find a way to put your branding first.
If your client interacts with their website’s CMS directly, investing in a white-label website builder like Duda would be a wise decision. Replacing a third-party website builder’s logo with your own reduces the number of third-party vendors your client interacts with and strengthens their perception of your agency as a web development expert.
Sometimes in business, it can be easy to forget that your client is a person too. While you don’t want to be too casual, your relationship will benefit from some light conversation from time to time. Ask them how their vacations went. Check in on the kids. Recommend your favorite restaurants.
When you develop a more personal relationship with your clients, you are further presenting yourself as more than a simple fulfillment partner but, rather, a teammate. After all, your client likely knows personal details about their employees—why not become part of that inner circle?
In fact, 86% of consumers say that they’re likely to stick with a brand after forming an “emotional connection” with a service representative. That’s a tough number to ignore.
While good customer service is key, your product also plays a big role. Some marketing services, such as websites, are inherently stickier than others. AgencyAnalytics found that agencies with shorter client retention periods, specifically under 2 years, focused on a narrow range of services such as PPC, SEO, social media marketing, and local marketing. With that in mind, how can your agency offer services that stick?
One of the stickiest services your agency can offer is website design. When you design and host a website for a client, you directly embed yourself into their brand—essentially becoming the "landlord" for their digital storefront. One reason for this is that a good website is difficult to migrate. Doing so can cause cascading effects that lead to decreased SEO performance, downtime, and more.
Some services, like SEO and social media marketing, can take time to show results. Instead of urging your clients to "have faith," consider offering these services as a bundle alongside other options. For example, instead of offering SEO services alone, consider an entire "Search Engine Marketing" suite that includes paid advertising alongside organic. That way, you can present results while waiting for your SEO efforts to take hold.
Don't let your relationship with your client stagnate. It might seem counterintuitive, but upselling services is a great way to maintain ownership of client mindshare. If you've already built a client a website, for example, then offer them quarterly content refreshes. This keeps your client's website feeling new while further cementing your expertise.
Your clients are investing in your services, so understandably, they are going to want to see a return on that investment. However, understanding what that return should look like may not be as simple as it seems.
Every client you onboard is going to enter the partnership with slightly different goals and expectations. You may even have specific goals that you want to achieve for your client. Striking a balance between these two, potentially competing, priorities is key.
Imagine, for example, that you’ve brought on a roofing client who just wants more customers. After getting to know them and their business, you’ve decided that creating a website with a focus on local SEO is the best way to produce results. How are you going to measure it? Even more importantly, how are you going to present those numbers to your client?
All of your clients are going to have different levels of exposure to digital marketing metrics. This is an important area that you should align on early and realign on often. If your client has any in-house marketing personnel, for instance, they may want significant amounts of raw data. Don’t hold back!
However, if you have a client with no marketing team and no marketing background, don’t hand them an exported spreadsheet from Google Search Console. Instead, meet them at their level. Highlight numbers that matter, explain what they mean, and identify trends and insights as you see them.
Keep in mind that curating data is not a license to hide your failures. If a piece of content you’ve created underperforms, you need to share that. However, you should do so in a solution-oriented way by explaining what you think went wrong and the ways you intend to improve the situation. This shows that you’re invested in your client’s success—an important quality to have!
You are not going to agree with your clients on everything, and KPIs are no exception. You’re the expert, but this is their business. If they want to see a certain number, even if you don’t believe it should be a priority, make it a priority.
You can, and should, still recommend KPIs that you believe are worth watching. To help sell it, describe to your clients how these numbers have impacted other businesses you’ve worked with. Explain how improvements in these metrics will benefit their business. If you and your client have a strong relationship, they’ll come around.
Unfortunately, no amount of relationship-building is going to make up for shoddy workmanship. If you’re an agency focused on building websites, you need to create pages that excite, delight, and—most importantly—perform.
Poor quality work gets created for a plethora of reasons. Perhaps your team is stretched too thin or doesn’t have the skills necessary to complete a specific brief. Even the tools you use can affect the quality of your team’s work.
As your agency takes on additional briefs, you need to ensure that you have the capacity to continue supporting your existing clients. If you’re using a website builder that requires a lot of continued maintenance, this can quickly become a huge drain on resources. Instead, take the opportunity to try a different tool with less ongoing maintenance, like Duda.
Duda uses a centralized, cloud-based architecture which enables our security team to perform essential maintenance on the back-end. What that means for you is no plugins to update or PHP versions to maintain.
The ultimate arbitrator of what defines a “quality” website is, ultimately, your client. With that in mind, you should make it easy for them to provide feedback early and often. If your website builder supports collaboration, consider inviting them to leave comments on the site at their leisure. That’ll allow you to make corrections in real-time and, ultimately, achieve your client’s vision.
There’s nothing worse than a client’s website going down. Depending on how long the site is unavailable, this experience can degrade their trust in your agency and leave a pretty bad taste in their mouth.
Instead, choose a reliable hosting provider from the start. While nothing in this life is perfect, many platforms, like Amazon’s Web Services, offer over 99.99% uptime. If you don’t feel comfortable hosting websites directly or are using a no-code tool that handles hosting for you, ensure that your hosting partner is using a reliable, cloud-based provider on your behalf. That’s what Duda does, and it saves our agencies a lot of headaches down the road.
Occasionally, you may receive a request from a client that exceeds your team's capabilities. Maybe a long-standing client needs a capability added to their website that will require custom development, or maybe they are looking for a service you don’t typically offer. In these situations, a white-label fulfillment partner can enable you to solve this client’s problem without introducing a new firm or hiring additional staff.
For nearly all service-based businesses, the most difficult part of client retention is ensuring that you’re finding the right clients in the first place. Keep an eye out for red flags during the acquisition phase and, when the rubber hits the road, be prepared to walk away.
While you’d certainly like to serve every client that comes your way, the reality is that not everyone is going to be the right fit. What does that look like, though?
Your agency is, at best, a spectator into the inner workings of your client’s business. If there are disagreements among the upper management in regards to your services, this may be a sign that the relationship won’t last long. You should try to identify any reservations upfront and do your best to ensure that they won’t rear their head again down the road.
Sometimes personalities clash. Have you ever encountered a client who is disrespectful to your team or slow to communicate with? Are they constantly asking for discounts or do they always behave like their project is an emergency? Difficult clients can grow to be more trouble than they're worth and, unfortunately, may churn regardless of your best efforts.
Focus on onboarding clients who you can successfully form a genuine business relationship with.
As an agency, you know that cash flow is king. So when a client takes their sweet time to pay the bills, you need to be prepared to show them the door. Consider, if you have the capabilities, automating your payment structure. If you’re building websites, for example, implement a system that suspends your client’s website after a certain amount of time overdue. With Duda, this is available out-of-the-box via integrated client billing.
You may be inclined to offer continued extensions to maintain this client’s business. Reconsider that approach. The time you waste chasing consistently delinquent clients could be better spent forming meaningful relationships, and ultimately retaining, your quality partners. Effort is a finite resource after all!
Retaining clients is an art, a science, and a testament to the commitment and expertise of your agency. We've explored five key strategies for client retention: Building Lasting Relationships, Communicating KPIs Effectively, Producing Quality Work, Meeting and Exceeding Expectations, and Ensuring a Good Client Fit. By implementing these strategies, you have the tools to cultivate strong client partnerships, deliver measurable results, maintain high-quality work, exceed expectations, and ensure that your agency is a perfect match for your clients.
As you work towards developing a bullet-proof client retention strategy, remember that it's not just about a single project—it's about creating a legacy of trust and satisfaction. It's about fostering relationships that stand the test of time. By continuously applying the knowledge and insights shared in this ebook, you can navigate the challenges of client retention with confidence and keep your agency on the path to sustained success.
