It’s always more cost effective to sell to existing customers as you already have a relationship with them. How well you maintain this relationship will dictate how much and/ or how frequently they buy from you.
Here are 5 customer retention tips that many of my clients have found useful in ensuring repeat business.
1) Communicate with your customers regularly. There are many ways you can keep your brand in front of customers including email, mail shots, courtesy calling and texting.
2) Give your customers useful information in and around your area of expertise on a regular basis. Doing this will:
- help build trust and build an intrinsic value for your product/ service/ brand
- show your customer base that you are an expert in your field of business
- keep your brand at the forefront of your customer’s minds
3) Reward customers for loyalty. This can be done in a number of ways. Examples include loyalty discounts e.g. ‘get £5 off your 4th hair cut’ and additional free services. The Orange mobile phone network used to give a ‘magic number’ every 6 months. This was a phone number of your choice that was free to call at any time of day for any length of time.
4) Get regular feedback from customers on your product/ service. This works well for two reasons:
- It helps you improve your service to help gain and retain more customers
- It shows the customer that you care
5) Keep all your customer information on a database. With this you will be able to build a profile of different customers’ buying patterns and habits. This will equip you with vital market intelligence to help:
- retain customers for even longer periods of time
- identify opportunities where you can up sell to them
