There are few things in business more difficult than bringing in fresh new customers. For this reason, you should be doing everything humanly possible to stop losing them once you get hold of them.
The truth is that this isn’t as difficult as you might thing. In fact, it should be easy for you to stop losing those valuable customers needlessly.
Stay in Touch
One of the worst things that you can do is simply lose contact with your customers once they order something from you. Instead, you should look to stay in touch with then.
You could ask if they want to receive your newsletters and offers, or perhaps you can make occasional follow up calls to see if everything is ok with the service or product. In some cases you might need to make this a brief and unobtrusive call, while in other cases they may be delighted to hear from you.
This means that you will want to work out right at the start how and how often to stay in touch. If you get this right then it will give you a terrific foundation for a lasting business relationship.
Get Their Details Right
With all the hard work that goes into getting a new customer on your books, you certainly don’t want to risk losing it by not paying attention to their details.
For a start, you could use a postcode finder that lets you be absolutely certain that you are sending out your correspondence to the right address. Even if the letters get to the right place, your client won’t be too impressed if you make any errors in the name or address fields.
By just spending a few extra minutes checking all of the details and using a good postcode lookup system you can send out your letter without any worries. You definitely don’t want to lose good customers through sending out sloppy letters with avoidable errors.
Show an Interest in Them
One of the classic sales tactics used by many successful salespeople is to find out a few details about their customers while chatting. This could mean asking the name of their children, finding out their birthday or getting hold of some sort of other personal information.
These details can then come in useful later on, for showing that you have been paying attention and understand something about your customer. Naturally, this is something that needs to be done subtly rather than appear that you are prying into their private life or being creepy.
We all like to feel that the people we deal with in a professional capacity are also friends in some way. Just by taking the time to chat and ask a few questions you can build up stronger bonds that really help you in the future.
Don’t Treat New Customers Better
It can be extremely tempting to put your best efforts into attracting new customers. It goes without saying that you will want to get hold of new clients to help the business grow over time.
However, the risk in this case is that you end up treating your existing customers like second class citizens as a result. Ideally, you will find a way of reaching out to new customers while also making the people already with you feel special and wanted.
You certainly don’t want one of your established clients to find out that you go the extra mile for others, offering them discounts and giving them some form of special treatment. Those valuable customers who are already on board should be treated with respect and their custom valued very highly.
Ask for Their Opinions
It can be a fantastic move to ask your existing customers for their opinion on how you run your business. As well as showing that you value their input, this could also help you to find out useful opinions from people who fully understand what you do.
You could do this by sending out a regular questionnaire asking what they think about your service. This will give you a good idea of how satisfied they are and whether they are likely to be looking to move elsewhere anytime soon.
If you take this approach then you need to be careful to take the feedback you receive into account. In other words, there has to be a practical outcome rather than it appearing like a hollow marketing exercise.
By following these simple tips you will stand a far better chance of holding onto the valuable customers that you worked so hard to bring in to begin with.