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Ten Tips to Build Customer Loyalty |
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Written by Administrator
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Tuesday, 29 April 2008 |
Build Customer Loyalty for your small business In any business, large or small, a steady customer base is key to business success. After all, successful businesses typically see 80 percent of their business come from 20 percent of their customers. But far too often, businesses neglect this loyal customer base in pursuit of new customers. If you want your business to grow, always remember that since the cost to attract new customers is significantly more than to maintain relationships with existing customers, your efforts toward building customer loyalty will certainly payoff when you focus on building customer loyalty.
The following are ten ways to build customer loyalty for your small business: 1. Communicate regularly. Make sure to take the time to communicate with an email newsletter, monthly flier, a reminder card for a tune up, or a holiday greeting card. Make the effort to reach out to your steady customers.
2. Customer Service. Go that extra mile and meet or exceed customer needs. Train your employees to do the same. Always remember - Customers remember being treated well.
3. Employee Loyalty. Loyalty works from the top down. If you are loyal to your employees, they will feel positively about their jobs and pass that loyalty along to your customers.
4. Invest in Employee Training. The time and care that you take to train employees in the manner that you want them to interact with customers, will empower employees to make decisions that benefit the customer, and this will help to grow profits for your business.
5. Offer Customer Incentives. Give customers a reason to return to your business. For instance, because children outgrow sports equipment quickly, the owner of sporting goods store might offer a card that makes the 4th pair of skates half price. Likewise, a optomitrist may give a free eye exam to anyone who has seen him regularly for more than 5 years.
6. Product Awareness. Know what your steady customers purchase and keep these items in regular stock. Add other products and/or services that accompany or compliment the products that your regular customers buy on a regular basis. Always make sure that your employees understand everything they can about your products and/or services.
7. Reliability = return customers. If you say a purchase will arrive on Monday afternoon, make sure to deliver it on a Tuesday. Be reliable. If something goes wrong with the item order, let your customers know immediately and compensate them for their inconvenience.
8. Solve customer complaints immediately and be flexible. Try to solve customer problems or complaints to the best of your ability. If you use "That's our policy" as an excuse, your business will lose more customers then setting the store on fire.
9. It's about People and not Technology. The harder it is for a customer to speak to a human being when he or she has a problem, the less likely it is that you will see that customer again.
10. Know Your customer's Names. Remember the theme song to the television show Cheers? Where everybody knows your name... Get to know the names of regular customers or at least recognize their faces. And always greet them with a smile.Related items
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Last Updated ( Tuesday, 29 April 2008 )
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Business