how’s repeat business? minor efforts towards increasing customer retention can make a major impact. in fact, a 2% increase in customer retention has the same effect as reducing costs by 10 percent.

how do you get that 2% bump? don’t look any further than your company’s website.

by adding a few simple features to your website, you increase the number of ways to share info and communicate with customers. consistent communication keeps your business top of mind, and that helps nudge those customer retention rates.

with that, here are four features you should add to your company’s website to increase customer retention. even better, you don’t need any coding skills or a website developer, and you can add these features to your site in a snap:

1. pop ups that collect email addresses, phone numbers, or encourage social follows

to keep customers coming back, it’s vital to stay in contact with them. some of the easiest and cheapest ways to connect with customers include email, text, and social media. with a healthy list of emails, you can send customers promotions, newsletters, updates about your loyalty program and invitations to events. text messages are a quick and easy way to send customer rewards, updates, info about flash sales, happy hours, or to send simple offers. social is important for communication, customer service, and awareness building.

how do you gather this information? install a website pop up that does the work for you. you don’t need any coding skills to create sleek pop ups that collect email addresses. try tools like popup domination or optinmonster.

here are a couple of popup examples from retailers puravida and kid licks (organic, edible nail polish) offering 10% in exchange for an email address or a social follow:

it’s a good idea to offer visitors some kind of incentive, like a discount or a coupon in exchange for their contact information.

2. social media follow & share buttons

social media plays a big role in customer service, communication, and advocacy. customers might not visit your website often, but if they follow you on social platforms, your presence in their newsfeeds keeps your business top of mind.

if your social media presence is fairly small, meaning you only use one or two platforms, you can go right to the social site for directions to add follow or like buttons to your site.

for example, if you want to add a facebook like button to your website, facebook has step-by-step instructions to set it up. here are a few quick links to buttons you might be interested in adding:

• pinterest follow and ‘pin it’ buttons
• instagram badges
• facebook share button
• facebook follow button
• twitter follow button
• tweet button

if you want a simpler solution, check out addthis. this third party tool will add well-designed social sharing and follow buttons to your website for you. they offer free and pro versions which include vertical sidebars, buttons that slide onto the screen, mobile versions and more.

 

3. search bar

some customers come to browse; others are looking for a specific product, service, or information. if customers can’t find what they’re looking for quickly, they’ll go somewhere else.

a site with clean navigation will go a long way to help customers find what they want; but let’s face it, you can only put so much information on your homepage. to help your customers zero-in on what they want from your company, add a search bar to your site.

if you used a do-it-yourself website builder there might be specific apps or add-ons that can add this feature to your site. for example, website builder wix has an app, site search. check with your diy builder for search tools.

you can also use a third party like swiftype. you just enter your web address and swiftype will index your pages and create a search bar for you. you can even reorder search results so customers see the most relevant pages.

4. survey

aren’t sure what your customers really want? try adding a small poll to your website. using digital tools, you can add something as small as a one-question poll as a sidebar on your website.

you could ask what kind of content your audience wants to see, what kind of rewards they prefer from your loyalty program or how often they want to hear from your company.

use the information that you collect to make changes that increase customer satisfaction in the short term, and customer retention in the long term.

try snap poll. it’s free. proprofs is another option. you can create polls, quizzes and games with this tool.

how do you use your website to retain customers? share your tips in the comment section below.