How to Create a Client Retention Plan for Your Wellness Center

If you want to grow your wellness center, one of the best ways to do so is to create a solid client retention plan.

What do we mean by client retention?

Client retention is the steps a company takes to reduce the number of client defections, a.k.a. clients who stop using their services. It’s how a business plans to keep the highest possible number of clients coming back.

Studies show that by increasing customer retention by 5%, businesses can increase their revenue anywhere from 25% to 95%! That’s a huge amount of return for a relatively small investment and it shows just how important a client retention plan can be for your business.

The way you keep clients coming back is by providing consistently excellent service, building relationships and increasing loyalty. Clients need to be so invested in your wellness center that they aren’t interested in visiting your competition!

In other words, you need to focus on building your wellness center client loyalty in order to build your business. And building loyalty takes work and patience—and a solid comprehensive client retention plan.

How to Increase Client Retention at Your Wellness Center

Are you stuck without a plan? Wondering how best to increase client retention at your wellness center? Not to worry, we’re here to help! We’ve put together this step by step guide to creating a client retention plan so you can become a pro in no time:

Step 1: Determine your target audience

The first part of the plan is knowing who you are marketing to. What’s your target audience? What type of clients are you trying to attract? Who is your ideal client? Without knowing who you’re trying to attract, you won’t be able to solidify your focus.

Wellness centers by nature, are a specific niche, so your market segment should be too. This step can be really helpful when you get to the marketing stage. The more specific your defined target audience is, the easier it is to speak to them directly and get them interested in your center and services.

So to start your client retention plan, ask yourself questions like:

• What age is my ideal client?
• What are they interested in?
• What are their lives like?
• When are their availabilities? Do they work during the day or evening and weekends?

Get really specific! The more detailed your client profile is, the more you’ll be able to get to know them and start to work tailor your client retention plan for them.

Step 2: Research your target audience

You’ve decided on your target market, now it’s time to really get to know them! Start to delve a little deeper into their interests and habits. For your client retention plan to be successful, making that connection with your clients is key.

Here’s where you need to put your thinking cap on. When you really get to know your clients and their habits and needs, you can tailor your services accordingly. If you want to impress your clients, offering niche services specific to their demographic will set your wellness center apart from the rest.

For example, is there a specific group of people that tend to frequent your establishment? Have you noticed that many of your wellness center visitors are also runners? Offer a talk on stretching for runners or invite a special guest to run a workshop, even if it’s slightly outside your center’s specialty. This shows that you’re interested in your clients, you know what’s important to them and you want to see them reach their goals.

The more you get to know your clients, the more they will see your relationship as a friendship, rather than a business transaction.

A word of advice here: clients will spot a faker a mile away. That’s why it’s important to take a real interest in what makes your target market tick—you’ll develop relationships and gain the sort of next-level loyalty that will grow your business and reputation for years to come.

Step 3: Get feedback

OK, you’ve done the research and figured out what your target market wants and needs. But let’s think about this: have you really gotten all the information you can?

Once you’ve gone through steps one and two, it’s time to go right to the source. How can you learn even more about your clients and what they’re looking for? You need feedback to be able to address their exact needs.

Let’s walk through this idea in a scenario: let’s say that your target client is around 40-years-old with an interest in spiritual healing. So you fill your center with guided meditation sessions to address that need. What you don’t know is that this client isn’t able to consistently spare time for one-hour meditations due to their busy work schedules, but would be able to fit in more sessions per week if they were 30 minutes.

How do you find out that information? By asking them, of course! Imagine if you had several clients in this same situation and you could better serve them all by offering shorter, more frequent services. If you knew about this need, you could make your clients happier and increase your revenue, simply by tweaking your schedule.

There are several ways you can get feedback from your clients to find out exactly what they need. You can send an email survey, ask visitors to fill out a questionnaire, post a poll on Facebook, or meet with clients face to face.

Find the approach that works best for your clientele to be able to hear what they want to say.

Another strategy is to ask members who want to cancel why they want to leave. This step may be a tough one! No one wants to hear criticism about their business, but you can get some real insight. Instead of making it personal, look at it as an opportunity for growth and improvement, and a chance to win them back.

Not sure that this will help your business? Consider the fact that Starbucks’ very successful rewards system originated with customer feedback . Their loyalty program is one of the most successful systems out there and without customer feedback, it may never have been implemented.

Clients want to be heard and when you offer them the opportunity to share their voice, you’ll gain their respect and loyalty.

Step 4: Follow through

This one should seem obvious but you might be surprised at how easy it is to get a little complacent once you start gaining a loyal clientele.

The best example of how this works is if you ask for suggestions on how to improve from your clientele, you need to make change to work towards that goal.

That doesn’t mean that each and every suggestion must be addressed, of course, but they will see that you trust and respect them when you make change brought about by their feedback. Not only that but it will show that you are committed to improvement and keeping your clients happy.

It’s important to remember that once you build relationships with your clients, every promise you make is like a promise to a friend. If you break your word, your clients will no longer trust you and the loyalty you’ve built will disappear.

The key to getting your client retention plan right is to do everything in your power to remain trustworthy to your clients.

Along these same lines, if you’ve committed to a certain level of service, don’t let your clients down. If you’ve offered a low rate, be sure to stick to it for as long as you promised.

If we haven’t stressed this enough, retaining clients is like keeping friends. Treat them with trust and respect and they will treat your business the same way. These are the foundations for your successful client retention plan.

Step 5: Show your appreciation

You’ve shown your clients that you know them and you’re listening to them, so now it’s time to show them the love! Customer appreciation is something that can be easily overlooked by businesses, but it can also be a simple way to solidify loyalty and set you apart from your competition.

How do you show your clients you care? The method doesn’t matter as long as there’s genuine motivation behind the gesture.

You could host a customer appreciation event, give out free samples, offer a limited time discount for long-term clients, give an incentive for referrals, start a loyalty rewards program, and the list goes on.

There’s no limit on how you can thank your clients! Think up an initiative they’ll appreciate, communicate a genuine message of gratitude, and watch the loyalty grow.

All in All

Relationship-building is the key to your successful client retention plan. Determine your target market, do your research, reach out, follow through and show them the love! Those are the steps you need to follow to get your client retention plan working for you.

Let WellnessLiving help!

WellnessLiving can help your client retention rates rise to the top. Our all-in-one wellness center software includes features like automated marketing, a loyalty reward program and so much more. By booking a free, no-commitment demo with WellnessLiving today, we’ll get to the core of what your business needs and help take your wellness center to the next level.