Do you forget about the customers you already have? Some businesses do, and that will come back to hurt you down the road. Becky Carroll from http://www.customersrock.net says to take care of your customers, or lose them.
In this informative podcast, Becky and I talk about the top tips for retaining customers, as well as keeping them happy. Remember, if your current customers leave because you’re spending too much time thinking about new business… you’re in bad shape.
Becky lists the “4 Key Questions to Improve Your Focus”.
1. How many customers did we keep from last year?
2. Why did we lose customers?
3. Why do our best customers keep doing business with us?
4. How many of our retained customers can help us sell more?
Show Notes:
Identify your vip customers? Keep two-way conversation going.
Your existing customers want to be loyal to you. They want to be recognized and thanked for their business.
When a business creates a proactive customer strategy to retain and grow their current customers, everyone wins.
Customers feel appreciated and, in turn, buy more and refer you to others. The company grows their business with fewer resources. Sounds like a great way to beat the current economic woes!
Retention rate is like a relationship, it takes work.
At the very least identify the top vips and contact them.
Does bribing work? Gifts?
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Thank you for having me talk about customer retention and Customers Rock! on the Daily Flip, Jim! I look forward to meeting you in person at BlogWorld this week.
Thanks for the link Jim – a useful podcast on a topic that's more vital now than ever. I specifically like the point that your existing customer want to be loyal to you – the job then becomes making that both easy and rewarding.
The one thing I would add would be the use of content as a low cost strategy to continue adding value and building customer relationships. As an example, you mention sending newsletters as something that a lot of businesses would be doing anyway – I think the trick here is not using newsletters as a way of 'telling them about the business' but rather as a way of delivering really useful information. Information that makes them smarter, helps them make smarter buying decisions and builds a relationship.
Becky also mentions the need to understand the customer. I think content has value here as well – you can use content to become a trusted resource and answer their biggest needs. Instead of sending a basket from Amazon as a gift, how about sending a useful case study specific to their industry?
Thank you for the link, I found it really very interesting, you are really very helpful jim, keep impressing us always, will keep coming back.
David