Customer Retention: Tips To Keep Customers Coming Back For More
Every entrepreneur knows the importance of customers. If you didn’t have individuals buying the products that you sell, then your venture would be null and void. This is why business owners invest so much of their time and money into their marketing. However, just getting customers through your doors isn’t enough. You must make sure that they come back again and again. If you can do this, then they’ll offer much more value to you than any one-time customer ever could. With that in mind, here are ten ways to keep customers happy and coming back for more.
- Give Everyone Special Treatment
Many businesses give their new customers special attention. They provide better service, offer exclusive deals and discounts, and do more to make those individuals happy. This goes a long way towards getting customers through the door, but, once the VIP treatment ends, it can leave those who were once loyal to you feeling unsatisfied. Unless you want to lose those customers you worked so hard to acquire, you need to find newer and better ways to keep them happy.
- Add A Personal Touch
Your returning customers want to be given the same special treatment as newer ones, but they still want you to see them as individuals. Unfortunately, this is something very few businesses do. Instead, they look at those shopping with them as nameless, faceless bags of cash. To stand out from those companies, you need to do the opposite and add personal touches. You could refer to your customers by name, for example, and send special discounts on their birthdays.
- Make Your Support Available
When customers need to get ahold of you, it’s important that they can do so right away. After all, if they have a problem, they’ll want it dealt with as soon as possible. Because of this, you should display your contact details clearly on your website and any marketing materials you produce. You should also offer multiple ways to contact you, including some, like chatbots, that are available 24/7. Some businesses create FAQ pages too so that customers can help themselves.
- Hire The Right People
You aren’t going to be able to answer every phone call and reply to every email and message yourself. Instead, you’ll have employees to help you carry out the task. With that in mind, it’s vital that you hire the right people for your business. This is necessary whatever the job but is even more crucial when those employees are to be customer-facing. Once you’ve found a candidate with the right qualifications and experience, you should also provide customer service training.
- Ask For Customer Feedback
The only way to keep customers coming back to your business is to keep them happy. For this reason, you must ask those customers for regular feedback. You can do so in person, at the point of sale, or use a business communications platform to send SMS messages, emails, and social media messages. If you’re struggling to get feedback from your customers, then you should consider offering a reward for doing so. Just a small discount is often enough motivation.
- Take Responsibility For Mistakes
As much as you may want to receive positive feedback all the time, this is very unlike to happen. Everyone makes mistakes, after all, and sometimes your errors are going to create negative experiences for your customers. Rather than ignoring this, you should take responsibility for it. Address exactly what you did wrong and explain how you will resolve the issue and do better in the future. Hopefully, by doing this, you’ll show that you care and stop customers from leaving.
- Offer Rewards For Purchases
After buying from you once, some customers will need a little push before they do so again. This is where a loyalty program comes in. Essentially, what this program does is reward customers when they make a purchase. Some businesses offer a reward after every sale, while others have their customers collect a certain number of points or stamps before they get their treat. However, you choose to do it, this token of your appreciation will be well received by customers.
- Post On Social Media
Social media plays a big part in our lives these days. It’s how we learn about the world, connect with our loved ones, and have fun. It’s also how we discover new stores, music, films, and more. Most people spend several hours on one social media platform or another every day, so it’s important that you do too. By posting regularly on your pages, you help to keep your business in the minds of your followers. This means that they won’t forget about you for another company.
- Go That Extra Mile
The very last thing that you want to do is lie to your customers. Whether you mean to do so or not, this can break the trust that you’ve built with them and push them away. For this reason, you should only make promises that you are absolutely sure that you can keep. Ideally, you should underpromise, but go that extra mile and aim to overdeliver. This means that customers will get just what they expected or be pleasantly surprised by the special treatment that you provide.
- Engage In Social Responsibility
We are much more aware of the impact that we have on the world these days. Because of this, customers are much more choosy about who they do business with. If they believe that a company harms the environment or supports a cause that they don’t, then they’ll likely overlook it for one more socially conscious. Doing good with your business, therefore, by donating to charities and adopting greener practices, makes it more likely that customers will stick with you.
A business is nothing without its customers. After all, no customers mean no sales. As important as it is to acquire new business, you should put effort into keeping repeat customers happy too. Hopefully, with the advice above, you can do just that.
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