9 Best Customer Retention Strategies That Get Results

Customer retention strategies are the ways businesses try to keep their current customers happy, involved, and coming back. These strategies are all about building long-term relationships — not just single interactions — by offering personalized service, loyalty programs, and proactive support.

Retention is much more than just a number on a report. Our research finds that 86% of service organizations track customer retention, knowing it costs more to find new customers than to keep the ones they already have. In today's tough market, having strong retention strategies can be what separates businesses that grow steadily from those that fall behind.

In this article, you'll learn proven ways to improve customer retention — from building trust to making your digital customer engagement stronger. You'll also discover how to measure the impact of these efforts, how Salesforce can help keep your customers coming back, and much more.

• What are customer retention strategies?
• The importance of developing an effective customer retention strategy
• The 9 best customer retention strategies for your business
• Choosing the right customer retention tools
• How Salesforce can help with customer retention

Customer retention strategies are the actions and approaches businesses use to keep customers engaged, satisfied, and coming back. These strategies focus on delivering consistent, high-quality service, anticipating customer needs, and creating personalized experiences that build long-term loyalty. When done right, they reduce churn, boost lifetime value, and turn everyday interactions into opportunities to strengthen customer relationships.

Technology like Agentforce for Service plays a key role in turning great service into long-term customer retention. Service Cloud brings all customer data and interactions into one platform, giving reps a complete view across every customer service channel. This complete view is fundamental to improving your customer service, making it simpler to resolve issues quickly and personalize interactions. AI agents powered by Agentforce handle routine and complex issues, suggest next best actions, and personalize support in real time. The result is faster, more consistent experiences that keep customers engaged and loyal.

If you want customers to stick around, you need a solid customer retention strategy — one that keeps them engaged, happy, and coming back for more. Let's look at three benefits of customer retention:

Customer churn, which is the rate that customers stop doing business with a company, is a major obstacle to growth. Think of it like a leaky bucket: no matter how many new customers you pour in, if the leaks (churn) are large, your customer base will stay the same or even shrink. This means a company spends a lot of its effort on maintaining its current size, rather than growing.

For example, every lost customer needs to be replaced to break even. Studies show it costs much more to get new customers than to keep existing ones. A strong plan for keeping customers is key to reducing churn. This is done by meeting customer needs and providing a great experience that builds loyalty and encourages them to continue doing business with you.

Longtime customers are more than just repeat buyers; they become powerful advocates for your brand. When customers consistently have positive experiences, they are much more likely to recommend your products or services to friends and family in customer reviews. A customer retention strategy focuses on nurturing these relationships, ensuring that satisfied customers not only stay with you but also become credible sources of referral, driving new business organically.

Strong customer retention rates (CRR) directly lead to higher revenue and overall business growth. When businesses successfully keep their customers, they generate more consistent income and reduce the high costs associated with acquiring new ones.

Our research finds that 74% of shoppers and 81% of Gen Z and Millennials say they've switched at least one brand in the past year. That's a clear signal: you need smart, proactive strategies to keep them coming back. By doing so, companies can give their customers a compelling reason to stay, rather than losing them to competitors. Here are 9 effective customer retention strategies that can help businesses achieve this goal:

Customers are more likely to remain loyal to brands that personalize their experience, making them feel understood. To achieve this, businesses should tailor all interactions by creating relevant recommendations and providing excellent customer service based on individual preferences and past behavior. Using tools like a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system and AI helps deliver the one-to-one experiences that drive customer loyalty.

Automating routine customer service tasks is essential for faster support and happier customers. AI agents powered by AI in customer service tools, like Salesforce's Agentforce, can handle common inquiries 24/7, freeing up your human agents for more complex issues. This efficient, scalable support improves the overall customer experience, which is key to boosting retention and loyalty.

Loyalty programs and gamification are effective strategies for rewarding customers and encouraging repeat business. By making customers feel valued, these programs can significantly boost loyalty. Our research shows that 84% of loyalty program members are more likely to make repeat purchases. Using platforms like Salesforce, you can design and manage loyalty programs that foster deeper customer connections and improve retention rates.

Understanding the voice of the customer — what they think and feel — is crucial for keeping them. Actively listen through channels like customer satisfaction surveys (CSAT), social media, and direct customer feedback to identify their pain points and desires. Salesforce’s customer feedback management tool can gather and analyze these insights, allowing you to quickly address issues, build trust, and create more personalized experiences that drive loyalty.

Even with great products, how you handle problems like shipping delays or broken items deeply affects retention. The key is turning negative moments into positive ones with quick, personalized answers, clear communication, and easy returns. Continuously improving customer service is vital for customer retention, and AI agents play a big role. They provide instant support 24/7, surface relevant information, and escalate complex issues to humans when needed. This helps customers feel heard and supported, even when things go wrong.

To prevent churn caused by inconsistent support, provide seamless omnichannel customer service across all communication channels. This approach centralizes customer interactions, often within a main contact center, ensuring personalized and continuous assistance. Service Cloud unifies these channels, allowing AI agents to deliver faster, more consistent experiences that help customers stay loyal to companies with faster service.

Predictive analytics offers a huge advantage by helping you understand which customers might leave before they actually do. This strategy leverages data to forecast future behavior, allowing you to spot early warning signs of dissatisfaction, such as decreased purchase frequency, negative feedback, or changes in customer interaction patterns. By analyzing these signals, Agentforce can pinpoint at-risk customers, enabling businesses to proactively intervene with targeted offers or support, ultimately boosting retention rates.

Anticipating and addressing customer needs before they arise builds strong trust and loyalty. This could mean sending automated updates about service outages, providing helpful tips based on product usage, or reaching out to customers showing signs of unhappiness. Agentforce enables these proactive, personalized communications at scale — showing customers you care and strengthening service-driven retention.

Anticipating and addressing customer needs before they arise builds strong trust and loyalty. This can be achieved through various means, such as sending automated updates about service outages, providing helpful tips based on product usage, or reaching out to customers showing signs of unhappiness. Additionally, proactive maintenance can play a crucial role in preventing issues and improving customer satisfaction. By leveraging Agentforce, businesses can enable proactive, personalized communications at scale, demonstrating their commitment to customer care and strengthening service-driven retention.

Choosing the right customer retention tools starts with understanding your business goals and your customers’ expectations. To help guide your choice, consider these important aspects:

Ask yourself: Do you need to improve response times, personalize support, reduce churn, or all of the above? Defining these goals is the crucial first step in selecting the right solution for your business.

Look for tools that offer core functionalities like automating repetitive tasks, surfacing real-time insights, and delivering personalized experiences across every channel, which the best solutions like Service Cloud provide.

Look for solutions that integrate easily with your existing systems and scale with your business. Platforms like Service Cloud centralize customer data and service interactions, giving your team a complete view of every customer. Layer on Agentforce to add AI-powered automation and support — helping you resolve issues faster, anticipate customer needs, and boost loyalty with every interaction. The right tools don’t just solve problems; they help you build stronger relationships over time.

Customer loyalty isn't just about price or product features — it’s about shared values. When your customers see that you care about the same things they do, it builds trust and makes the relationship stronger.

Agentforce for Service can make a big difference when it comes to customer retention. With Service Cloud, your team gets a full picture of every customer — past purchases, support history, preferences, and more — all in one console. That means reps don’t have to search for info, and customers don’t have to repeat themselves. It’s easier to resolve issues quickly, personalize every interaction, and build the kind of trust that keeps customers keep coming back. Plus, because Service Cloud connects all your channels, customers get a consistent experience whether they reach out by phone, chat, email, or social.

Agentforce brings AI into the mix to help your team do even more. AI agents can handle routine and complex questions around the clock, giving your reps more time to focus on higher-value interactions. Agentforce can also suggest next-best actions, flag customers who might be at risk of leaving, and help guide conversations toward better outcomes. It’s about combining speed, personalization, and proactive customer service to keep your customers happy and loyal.