Successful Customer Retention Strategies From Specsavers

Naveed Hussain, an Operations Manager at Specsavers, who collected a gold award for Rising Star Team Manager at the 2023 UK National Contact Centre Awards, shares his top tips for a better customer retention strategy in the contact centre.

Here are 7 lessons for improving customer retention:

1. Give Agents a Workflow to Cover Each Reason for Leaving

Workflows can really help boost everyone’s confidence and level the playing field for success.

This can be particularly helpful for objection handling, giving agents the right things to say to counter an objection and increase the chances of retaining the customer.

This is where it can really pay off to create these resources to share with your team.

2. Share Staged Call Recordings Showcasing Dos and Don’ts

Another great way to support your frontline teams with customer retention is to share staged call recordings of how to retain customers… and how not to!

These can then be played back for initial training, as well as for handy refreshers.

3. Ask Your Team What They Need to Succeed

Take the time to ask the team “what do you need to succeed?” then invest in the resources they ask for.

Don’t assume you have all the answers. Take the time to ask the team “what do you need to succeed?” then invest in the resources they ask for. You might be surprised at the quick wins you can achieve here.

For example, they may ask for support on a scenario you hadn’t initially considered, giving you an opportunity to host a team huddle to talk it through and fill this small knowledge gap.

4. Boost the Incentive Budget

One way to increase enthusiasm for customer retention is to boost the incentive budget for good results.

The best part?

If it’s a success, it’s easier to justify the budget and get sign-off for the next customer retention push.

If you are looking for some great incentive ideas, read our article: 100 Great Staff Incentives to Motivate Your Team

5. Reward for Improvement – Not Just Hitting Targets

Don’t just reserve all the prizes for people consistently hitting target. Celebrating any progression and shift in personal improvement is worthy of a reward too – even when targets are missed.

It can really help here to give team leaders a budget for rewarding their team. That way they’ll be empowered to look at performance on a case-by-case basis and avoid a one-size-fits-all approach that could leave some people feeling left behind.

6. Flip the Sales Message for a More Positive Focus

One of the biggest challenges in encouraging frontline agents to focus on customer retention is getting over the mindset of “we’re not a sales team”. This is where it really helps to flip the message.

Instead of hitting them with hard sales targets, why not try explaining that you are educating the customers with all the options to ensure they can make the right decision for them based on their needs?

By doing this consistently, we have seen an 10% increase in retention rates.

7. Promote Your Success Beyond the Contact Centre

Don’t forget to shout about your success to the wider business too!

Not only can this help to share best-practice advice across other departments, but you may also find it helps to unlock more funds into the contact centre for the incentive and rewards “pot” – to support the great efforts of the frontline teams.

Overall, with such initiatives in place, customer retention can start to become part of the culture of the team and normal business-as-usual behaviour. It’s a win-win.

Thanks to Naveed Hussain, Operations Manager – Domiciliary at Specsavers, for being interviewed for this article.

Read more articles in our “What I’ve Learned” series by following the links below:

• What I’ve Learned From Running a Contact Centre – Driving Career Progression
• What I’ve Learned About Running a Call Centre – 5 Critical Factors
• What I’ve Learned From Running a Contact Centre – Be a Knowledge Sponge
• 11 Customer Retention Strategies (callcentrehelper.com)
• Top Tips for Customer Retention (callcentrehelper.com)

Author: Megan Jones
Reviewed by: Rachael Trickey