In business, growing your customer base is certainly vital to continuing as a vibrant going concern. Books galore hit stores each year, which deal with ways to garner new customers. In addition, a host of seminars plays out each week worldwide on how to gain greater market share by winning new customers over to your enterprise.
That's all fine, however, you also need to spend enough time, energy, and resources ensuring existing clientele remain loyal to your establishment. Gaining new customers, only to have a significant amount of regular customers leave you for other places of business nets you very little – if anything at all - in terms of increased revenue.
It's important to show appreciation to those who frequent your enterprise week in and week out. Sure, a certain percentage of customer turnover is something you have to expect in business. That's a fact, just as employee turnover is. However, hanging on to a significant portion of your regular customers should be as much a part of your marketing plan as is securing new customers.
With that in mind, here are five tips for taking care of your regular customers:
Focus on a Complete Level of Service
This entails multiple areas of your business. People become and stay regular customers when you go beyond expectations. A complete service package means quality products, fair prices, and excellent guarantees. It also means enthusiastic and knowledgeable employees. In addition, it means being attuned to changing customer desires and adapting your business product mix and customer service protocols to match these evolving customer needs.
A complete level of service involves focusing every aspect of your business on customers' wants and needs. This concept of 'wants and needs' trumpets out frequently in sales and marketing manuals. Those businesses that truly fulfill these for their regular customers, consistently, are businesses that often ride out the downturns that happen in local, regional, and national economies.
Take the "Living-Room" Approach
In other words, make your regular customers feel especially welcome and at ease in your place of business. You should do this for all customers, but regular customers need to know they're visiting people who are always glad to see them again. Convey to them the fact that you appreciate their visiting you and giving you their business...then go beyond that. Do this by giving all the help, information, advice, and ideas at your disposal to help them make wise buying decisions (and enjoy their shopping experience). Let them know your focus is on their satisfaction.
Focus One-to-One
Mass marketing through giant big box stores and the like has done away somewhat with individualized attention. Make a point of fine-tuning your approach to individual personalities not an overall 'generic customer.' The way you approach and talk to one regular customer who browses your aisles may not be the way to approach another regular customer browsing another aisle.
Everyone's different and therefore you must be attentive to the different people you meet and their different personalities. Listen to what each individual says to you and how they say it to you. You can learn a lot about their true needs by doing this. This helps you direct your conversation with them in the appropriate way. As you get to know your regulars in this way, you will learn better how to serve them.
Focus on a Unique Reward System for Your Regular Customers
This is a natural extension of the above point; because your regular customers are unique personalities, reward them in unique ways. As you get to know these regulars, be attentive to their talk about their lives – their families, work, hobbies, interests, and such. Then resolve to reward them as loyal customers based on their specific life.
For instance, does a customer who has come into your shop for years have a significant event on the horizon in their life. Maybe they are getting ready to celebrate a milestone-wedding anniversary or birthday. You can surprise them with a card, maybe even a gift card or gift to celebrate with them.
This is something that's not part of a regular incentive program open to all customers. This is a special way of saying you appreciate this customer as an individual who deserves a reward for their loyalty. However, it's a reward created just for them and their circumstances and life situation.
A Very Important V.I.P. Club
You secure further customer loyalty when your V.I.P. Club is not a cookie cutter version of a myriad of other V.I.P. Clubs. Offer significant incentives and rewards to those who are part of this club. Make the rewards specific to your business as much as is possible so that your program stands out as different from others in the marketplace.
Of course, to be a member of this truly rewarding club the person must be a long-standing customer who has contributed to your business through regular purchases. They deserve the benefits of your major V.I.P program geared to loyal regulars. They feel privileged to be part of it, and valued because they are a part of it. Don't have a V.I.P Club for regular customers that is classy in name only and offers very few benefits.
Taking care of your regular customers does take effort. The effort is worth it when you see your business stable because of a strong foundation of loyal customers who value your enterprise. Base the strength of your business on your regular customers and the growth of it on the new ones who down the road will become part of that strong foundation themselves.
Source:
https://exploreb2b.com/articles/taking-care-of-your-regular-customers
http://innovationova.blogspot.com
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