Five lessons learnt from forging millions of customer relationships that are built to last

Working hard to build long lasting customer relationships has a meaningful impact on the bottom line. 

Acquiring a new customer is anywhere from five to 25 times more expensive than retaining an existing one . At the heart of retention is a strategy from brands for being customer centric. According to Deloitte, companies embracing such strategies are 60% more profitable compared to those that don’t.

There’s good reason for business leaders to invest in customer relationships, beyond it being the moral and ethical choice to support customers as best as possible. But earning retention, and building strong relationships, represents a complex challenge for brands. 

Nearly four in five (78%) people globally uncover things that attract them to brands after making their first purchase with them , demonstrating how the product itself can influence only part of that relationship.

So, what are the industry secrets for customer retention? Henning Elkjaer, Brother sales director Brother Denmark & Norway, and Brother International Europe Executive Director Chris Marshall, reflect on the key learnings from their careers on how businesses can foster customer relationships that are built to last. 

1) Create a company DNA for customer centricity

Having the right company culture can be transformative in influencing positive customer relationships, with everyone through the business working in the customer’s best interest.

Henning Elkjaer reflects on what ‘At your Side’ means in the local market. They said:  “Everything our teams do is shaped by ‘At your Side’, which is our cultural foundation as a company for helping partners, customers and end users. By prioritising their needs, we create lasting relationships and a market presence defined by trust and reliability.”

‘At your side’ has been Brother’s brand promise for decades, representing its ethos of creating customer relationships that are built to last. 

Chris Marshall explains its significance, beyond being just a brand strapline. He added: “Everyone is encouraged to live by the ‘At your side’ brand promise: from the engineer that builds software to make installation incredibly easy, to the customer service agent handling calls. 

“If every team lives by a central culture focused on customer outcomes, then businesses have the best chance at delivering the brilliant experience that drives retention.”

2) Help partners to reflect your values

Many businesses rely on a network of partners to deliver their product or service to their customers, and Brother is no different. But this adds to the challenge of building customer advocacy, when brands need third parties to harmonise on service quality and values.

Chris concedes that Brother’s approach of selling indirectly to customers can make investing in relationships more challenging. The business learnt how, to successfully deliver on its brand promise, it must extend ‘At your side’ to the DNA of its partner network too.

He said: “The majority of our business is done through intermediaries, so a lot of the direct relationships our customers have with us is managed by our partners. We learnt that our partners needed to come on the ‘At your side’ journey with us in order for it to be successful. Training is a core part of how we achieve that, alongside aligning with intermediaries that share our values. 

“Our Brother approved partners must meet the right standards for customer service. Supporting them to provide that experience is part of our ongoing relationships with partners.”

3) Deliver on the key facets of customer centricity

Product reliability and availability, delivering convenience and meeting expectations are key facets to nurturing customer satisfaction, and to building strong relationships. Henning Elkjaer said: "Gaining customers' trust and satisfaction relies on four key things: reliability, availability, conveniences, and meeting expectations."

Customer expectations are shaped by a number of things. Businesses need to evolve in line with advancing technology, macro trends, and how brands in other sectors influence how consumer and business decision makers want to engage with suppliers and vice versa.

For example, Chris Marshall looked ahead to how Brother’s approach to customer centricity may change in future in line with changing customer expectations. He said: “We’ll likely see further evolution, rather than revolution. AI will help us to analyse our Managed Print Service customers’ usage in a more advanced way, allowing us to provide an even more tailored experience. Connected devices will send back data on whether our customers are getting the best ROI from their device, and whether they may be more suited to a different model that will cost them less to run to meet their needs.”

4) Become a listening organisation, and respond

Businesses that actively listen to customers are best placed at meeting their evolving needs. This includes understanding and acting on customer survey data; collating and learning from direct feedback from salespeople or customer service agents; and making data-led inferences from sales and retention figures.

Henning Elkjaer, Brother sales director Brother Denmark & Norway, reflected on what active listening means in the local market. He said: “Business leaders need to monitor a huge spectrum of inputs to build a true picture of what their customers want, in order to make informed decisions about how they should adapt or innovate. 

“The speed that calls are being answered or customer queries are being resolved, renewal rates, sales volumes, and direct feedback are just some of the metrics businesses need to be listening to on a routine basis.”

Becoming a listening organisation goes beyond the surface level of customers’ beliefs and needs too. For example, many people see print technology as being long-lasting. But listening more deeply, print users continue to value the security and trust provided by warranties and commitments from brands to service legacy products. Outcomes like these will look different in any business. But Chris built on what active listening has changed at Brother. 

He said: “Brother rolled out some of the industry’s longest warranties on products. We also listened to the sustainability ambitions of consumers and businesses, who wanted to contribute to circular economies. We responded by growing our pioneering remanufacturing operation, becoming the first print vendor to remanufacture both laser and inkjet cartridges free of charge. Brother won the coveted Blue Angel accolade for a toner cartridge comprising of mostly re-used parts.”

5) Measure different retention metrics

Repeat business and renewal rates are the KPIs for businesses to watch as they measure how successful they are in their endeavours to be customer centric. 

But there’s other, industry-specific metrics leaders can watch. Chris reflects on what helps to evaluate Brother’s customer centricity: “The fact we have more than 90% of managed print service customers renewing with us at the end of contract demonstrates the level of service we’re delivering. 

“But we can look at our success in our partner loyalty too - we’ve maintained relationships with partners for decades and they can trust that we’ll help them to overcome challenges and meet opportunities. The fact that we’ve got so many longstanding partners shows to us that we’re creating relationships that are built to last.”

A rolling approach to customer satisfaction

Ultimately, customer centricity needs to be an ongoing, always-on strategy. Henning Elkjaer reflects on the importance of not stopping efforts to build customer centricity. He said:: “Businesses can’t become complacent in customer centricity. It needs to shape every decision a business makes.” 

Supporting customers as best as possible is responsible business, but it also delivers commercial advantages by creating a network of partner and customer advocates.

Business leaders can’t take customer retention for granted on the back of a good product alone. Fostering strong relationships requires a full spectrum of support for customers. It needs business leaders to nurture a strong company culture focused on creating excellent customer outcomes, to deliver on customers’ evolving expectations for convenience and reliability, and for businesses to continuously listen and evolve to meet changing needs.