7 Customer Retention Strategies That Work the Best for Autistic Freelancers
By: Vanessa Blanchard
This is the 6th (and final) post in the freelancing series, where we help autistic folks start and maintain a freelancing career. We were able to create it thanks to the support of Spectroomz hub members, and therefore it’s available only to members.
As I’ve mentioned before, finding customers or clients is an important part of freelancing. It’s also time consuming and intimidating. In the last article, we talked about client red flags, but now let’s talk about ways to keep a client or customer coming back for more. The customer retention strategies that we’ll discuss in this article were picked to accomplish two goals: 1)I want to help you develop customer service skills that are applicable for online businesses and 2) I want to pick skills that don’t require a lot of masking.
Remember, professionalism is different from masking, though it can come with a ton of pressure to mask. This article aims to give you a few tactics and skills that are rooted in your authentic self. These are customer service strategies that you can hopefully feel comfortable using as you run your business.
Customer Retention Strategies for Autists
As you go through list list of retention strategies, you’ll find a couple common themes: authenticity is best and you should build trust and show appreciation with your customers or clients. In fact, let’s start with building trust right now.
1. Build Trust with Clients/Customers
Most of the tips in this article will be tools you can use to build trust in yourself as a freelancer or trust in your brand (depending on your business). In general, you want to use your website, social media, packaging, and customer service to show your clients or customers that you appreciate them. If you promote yourself over social media, fine tune your branding to help your audience trust you.
The key to building trust through brading is to offer up enough transparency and authentic personality to endear yourself to your customers. One easy trick for this is to include your face in your business or branding. If that’s not comfortable, you could create a mascot instead. Including other personal touches also helps, like sharing glimpses behind the scenes or into your work process.
Basically, let your customer base know that a real person is working on the services or products you offer.
2. Communicate in text when possible
Autistic people benefit from text-based conversations because it protects us from social biases. It also slows conversations down to an autistic-friendly pace. It also allows autistic folks more room to be our authentic selves without the social fallout.
It helps with things like negotiations, conflict resolution, and receiving feedback to have room to manage my emotions behind the scenes. Responses need to be timely (shoot for within 24 hours during business days), but enough of a delay is assumed that you can have time to regulate your emotions and/or process the situation.
As most of us know, having the room to process and compose a response is often the difference between a successful interaction and a disastrous one. Having the room to be authentic without confronting social biases allows you to build trust with your clients as well
(In this case, authenticity is referring to your ability to represent your thoughts, ideas, and values during communications rather than suppressing those things to “get along” with NT clients)
3. Offer discounts for repeat customers or for referrals
A quick and easy way to show appreciation for your customers is through discounts. Strategically applied discounts can help reluctant customers take action. They can also encourage repeat customers and word-of-mouth advertising.
The core of your interactions with customers and clients will be tied to money, so offering discounts is seen as friendly and generous. It’s a way to go “above and beyond” and makes you more money in the long term because of repeat business and/or referrals.
4. Have convenient contracts
Add protections for the client/customer into your contract. Likewise, make sure that features added to protect you don’t inconvenience your customer. For example, adding expiration dates to contracts protects you from getting stuck in projects that drag on and on. Making a renewal for a contract hassle free keeps ongoing clients happy.
If you’re selling a product rather than a service, outline your terms and conditions with the same principle in mind. Make sure that your refunds or returns policies are visible and well-defined. Research policies in your industry to find out what is normal/fair if you need guidance.
Whether you’re offering a service or selling a product, having clear policies is a form of transparency. If your policies are fair and easy to find, you’ll build trust.
5. Be grateful for feedback, questions, or complaints
If there’s a complaint or feedback about mistakes you’ve made, validate the customer’s concern and thank them for the chance to address the issue. This de-escalates many situations and allows you to grow professionally as well. Your gratitude has to be (mostly) authentic to work. We all get caught up in our ego sometimes, but there’s also a part of us that really cares about honing our skills. Lead with that part of yourself. Don’t lead with feelings of rejection.
Let me give you a personal example. When I sold crochet patterns, customers would message me if they were confused by my instructions. I always told them the truth: I was designing and testing the patterns alone, so it was very possible that there were mistakes. I thanked them for bringing it up, worked to make sure they understood the instruction, and then updated the pattern. An updated copy was sent for free to everyone who’d bought the pattern. It improved my product and showed customers genuine respect and appreciation. Plus, it lets them be confused without feeling bad about it.
6. Provide dissenting feedback that acknowledges the client or customer’s strengths
This is a tricky area for autistic people, because we often find that our feedback is poorly received by others. Speaking up and asserting our knowledge can bruise egos regardless of our intentions. It honestly feels like there’s a lot of pressure to hold in our thoughts and feedback.
To me, not speaking up feels like masking. Because, as a professional, I have opinions about the work that I do. I have boundaries about how communication should go and about how I’m treated. It’s more authentic to develop customer service skills that allow me to diplomatically assert myself.
Just like with customer complaints, the key is validation. If you disagree with a client on something, tell them in a way that helps them feel appreciated. I can hear your eyes rolling, but trust me. With a little practice, this builds a TON of trust. Tell your clients when you recognize their strengths and offer to defer to them occasionally -- even if you don’t agree with them. Thank them when they incorporate your feedback in ways that improve your work. It’s a specific customer retention strategy to compromise specifically because you appreciate them.
7. Offer perks and personalization
Throw in some extras that show you appreciate their business. This should be something that is cost and time effective. But it’s worth the extra effort. Examples: Many creatives will include a small gift and a handwritten note with the customer’s name on it. As a customer, I’ve gotten bath salts, keychains, and tiny paintings from creatives in the past.
As a freelancer, showing appreciation through personalizing your work goes a long way. Taking the time to develop a deep understanding of the company's branding, voice, or overall goals yields better work. Clients love being shown that you’re willing to learn about them so you can help them. Likewise, you should proactively develop your skills. If you can highlight problems that a company needs solved, they’re more likely to use you on future projects. If you can deliver to a prompt with a flourish the client hadn’t imagined, they’ll be more likely to tell others about you.
Validation + Appreciation = Customer Retention
If you’re freelancing, you’re running a business and that means you have to build relationships with your customers or clients. The customer retention strategies featured in this article are geared towards helping autistic people develop the tools to navigate that reality. The only way you’ll learn is through practice and many of these skills can be molded to your authentic personality. In fact, they should be molded to fit you. Because finding ways to be comfortably authentic not only builds trust with your customers, it builds a sustainable business model for yourself.