1. Establish yourself as a resource for life
   By positioning yourself as a provider of services, someone who can solve customer problems instead of someone who just wants to sell a specific item, you instill a sense of trust and confidence in buyers. Always providing excellence in your services makes you a dependable resource. Customers will continue to return to you to achieve that high level of excellence for their business needs. Continue to offer high-quality services at a competitive price. Watch your competition carefully to ensure you stay at the top of your market.
    
2. Make it personal
   Follow up with customers to provide the most complete service possible. Request and consider feedback from your customers. Ask them how the experience was for them; were they happy, what could you do better next time? Providing those personal touches, such as remembering certain likes or dislikes of your customers, sending birthday discounts, holiday cards, etc. makes customers feel connected with you and your business.
    
3. Reward customers for long-term commitment
   Creating a loyalty program that rewards customers for long-term repeat business makes customers feel appreciated and reminds them to return to you when they need more work done.

What is the Customer Retention Rate?
The Customer Retention Rate, or CRR, measures the average amount of time a Freelancer maintains a relationship with an Employer. To receive credit for a relationship with an Employer, the Freelancer must have received payment from the Employer within the last 12 months. In addition, the more money the Freelancer has earned from the Employer within the last 12 months, the more "credit" he or she receives.

How is your CRR calculated?

• The first column, "Employer", lists all of the Employers you have earned money from within the last 12 months.
   
• The second column, "$ Earned (Last 12 Mos.)," lists the amount of money you have earned from each of those Employers over the last 12 months.
   
• The third column, "# Months (Last 12 Mos.)," lists the total number of months it's been since you first received a paid invoice from each of the Employers. To maintain data integrity for this calculation, the maximum amount of relationship months a Freelancer can have with an Employer is 12.
   
• The fourth column, "CER Per Emp. (in Dollars)," is the amount of money you have made per month from each Employer.
   
• The fifth column, "% $ Earned Per Emp. (Last 12 Mos.)," divides your Customer Earning Rate per Employer by your total Customer Earning Rate to arrive at a percentage that represents how much of your total earnings were paid by each Employer.
   
• The sixth column, "# Months Actual [Adj.]," lists the total number of months it's been since you first received a paid invoice from each Employer. If you have known any of the Employers longer than 6 months, you will receive a minimum of a 12 month credit for all your relationships. If your relationship with any of these Employers has surpassed 12 months, you will receive credit for the actual number of months you have maintained those relationships. If you have known all of the Employers 6 months or less, you will receive credit for knowing all of those Employers for 6 months.
   
• The seventh column, "CRR Per Emp.," lists the proportion of months that you have retained each Employer. To determine your average Customer Retention Rate, we sum the proportion of months you have retained each Employer. Your average Customer Retention Rate is displayed at the bottom of the chart.