Customers are the only thing that keep businesses running and the better relationship you have with them, the more success that you’re likely to enjoy. However, customers can be quite capricious sometimes (a survey conducted in 2015 found that 42% of American customers will stop shopping with a brand after just two bad experiences). Their loyalty may easily be bought by a rival who offers better prices or extra benefits such as free delivery. If you work in retail, whether you run your own small store or restaurant or you’re part of the managerial hierarchy of a larger organization, you will know firsthand how difficult customers can be sometimes. If everything is not exactly perfect, you will likely receive complaints about it. With the advances in the ecommerce market, you have to please customers on two fronts now. In lots of cases, there are aspects of your business that you may have to outsource, like transit for instance. If a delivery is late, you can expect for your customers to inform you that they intend to spend money with your competitors. However difficult they may be at times, you need them, and if your products or services are good, they will need you too.
It is, therefore, crucial that you try to retain your customers. A study conducted by the Harvard Business Review found that acquiring a new customer is five to twenty-five times more expensive than keeping your existing ones. It makes good financial sense to treat your customers well and to have a good relationship with them. If you want to improve the customer relations of your business, here are a few tips:
If someone wants to find out more about you, they might call and just ask, but the likelier option is that they will search for you online. If you do not have a website, you should invest in one (you can learn more here about how easy it is). If you do, you need to make sure that it is friendly, inviting and easy to use. In the modern world where information is more easily accessible now than ever before, your customers will not want to have to spend too much time and effort navigating a poorly designed site. Besides, if your site is good enough, you may be able to turn a visitor into a paying customer. Conversion rate optimization (CRO) is something that many companies can help you with.
Impressing your customers is not all about making their lives easier though. A study published in 2015 found that customers are more likely to spend money on companies whom they consider to have a wider societal impact. The statistics are impressive: for every increase of 10% in how meaningful a customer considers a brand to be, that company can increase its purchase intent by 6% and its price premiums by 10.4%. While it may seem counter-intuitive because you literally have to give money away, donating money to charity may actually help you earn more overall. Customers positively respond to brands that are generally beneficial.
A last tip for retaining existing customers is to write to them if you’ve not seen them for a while. It will demonstrate that you care. With customers, it is the little things that count.
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