Importance Of Customer Retention
A very successful businessman once said that your next big customer is your old customer. Whether you run a small home business or a huge enterprise, your customers are what pumps blood to your business and your bottom line. Thus, repeat business and referrals from happy customers are essential to ensuring your business’ endurance and longevity.
Unfortunately for a lot of businesses, they realize late in the game that it’s so much easier to generate repeat business than it is to bring in new ones. Businesses need to know from day one that the customer is the most important part of the equation.
If you analyze it, customer retention does not require a lot of investment in resources. Customers just need to be given the importance they deserve. Many times, especially for those who are just starting out in business, customers are forgotten immediately after the first sale is closed. Nothing can ensure the early demise of one’s business than neglecting customers. Treat that first customer well and he or she will come back to buy more of what you have. What’s more, he or she will tell others about you and you will have more business because you took care of one customer.
A good customer retention program is something that each owner need to make a part of his business. Maintaining a contacts database allows you to conduct periodic surveys among those whom you’ve sold products or rendered services to. You could also hold focus groups to figure out strengths and weaknesses in what you sell and determine which direction to take them. Of course, now that social networks and online presence are common place for gathering information, you should be able to leverage these technologies to help in developing/improving your customer retention program.
For businesses with a more complex customer profile, it may be a good idea to partner with a 3rd party company that specializes in such programs. Kobie Marketing is a company that offers fully-integrated, customer loyalty marketing and customer retention services. Using innovative solutions to meet customer loyalty and retention challenges, they help clients acquire and retain high-value customers. They can also help create profitable customer relationships & loyalty marketing programs as well as develop effective consumer & sales force promotions thus improving your company’s customer lifetime value. Call them toll free at 1-800-821-7892
Customers are what will determine whether your business grows big or go the way of the dodo bird. Treat them right and they will do the same for you.
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