Retaining Customers Makes Cents
| Category: Customer Service | Date: 2001-07-06 |
You WILL lose customers. It’s a fact of business. Knowing how and why this happens can provide the insight necessary to minimize this unfortunate event.
You basically have two choices if you wish to maintain X number of customers in your database. You can constantly add new customers to replace those that left OR work closely with your existing customers / prospects to keep them from leaving. Let’s examine each of those choices.
Constantly Adding New Customers
This can be costly and time consuming. In fact, the cost of acquiring new customers can be 5-6 times that of maintaining your current list. You will also receive less referrals from new customers since you haven’t had a chance to build rapport and prove yourself to them.
With all that in mind, why do we so easily fall into that trap? I’ve been guilty of this myself so allow me to offer some explanations from personal experience. The Internet is filled with an abundance of promotional techniques while new ones are being offered every day. It is very tempting to try these latest tips in hopes of attaining gobs of new prospects/customers.
Although some of these techniques may be very good, it is easy to lose sight of our existing customers and their needs. In my discussions with other business owners, I have found that some are always looking for that super customer who is going to place a really large order and give them tons of referrals. Unfortunately, your chances of achieving that are much greater with an existing customer versus a new one.
Maintaining Your Current Customer Base
If you treat your prospects/customers VERY well, most will not leave. In fact most businesses lose customers not because of poor quality, a competitors prices or even a bad experience. Most customers are lost because they feel they were not appreciated. Here are some tips to minimize attrition.
Develop a Plan
Make a list of the top 5 reasons you feel someone should do business with you. Prioritize that list. Come up with 2 or 3 policies or plans of action that will assure those 5 reasons (goals) are met. Develop a schedule you can follow to track when these plans are to be implemented. Regularly review this plan to monitor its effectiveness.
Welcome Customer Complaints
Let’s face it. Most of us do not like negative feedback. We would rather have someone tell us how great our product or service is. Everyone needs a little praise but some honest negative feedback can be far more beneficial. This is because it exposes a problem or situation that is costing you lost revenues and customers.
Most people who have a complaint won’t take the time to write. They will just stop doing business with you. Therefore it is important to acknowledge their concern and respond to it right away. I have experienced several situations both as a business owner and a customer whereby the prompt professional manner with which the concern was addressed definitely solidified the relationship. This fact cannot be over emphasized. Welcoming a customer complaint gives you a chance to build rapport and fine tune your business at the same time.
To facilitate customer feedback, a survey or feedback form should be included in every order that you ship. If someone else does your fulfillment, an e-mail notice or post card sent a few days after the product is received also works well. It would helpful to have a separate page on your site devoted to this subject as well.
Suggest Other Related Sites
Don’t be afraid of losing a customer by referring them to another site that may provide answers, training, etc. or subjects your visitors require help on. Most people will respect you for that and view it as value added service. If you are still concerned, here is a little HTML trick I use on my own site when creating external links.
On the link to another site in the format
A href=http://www.anothersite.com, just insert the following code immediately after without parentheses (target="_blank"). When your visitor clicks on that link, it opens a new browser window for that new page, while keeping your current page open so they never actually leave your site.
You are always going to lose some customers, but by practicing the techniques suggested in this article, you should be able to lower that number while increasing the amount of good referrals you receive.
About the author:
Barry Craft has helped thousands of entrepreneurs develop more income from their online businesses. He publishes "Cyber Marketing News" which provides the latest Internet marketing tips.
:To contact see details below.
barry@profitmatters.com
http://www.profitmatters.com/
You basically have two choices if you wish to maintain X number of customers in your database. You can constantly add new customers to replace those that left OR work closely with your existing customers / prospects to keep them from leaving. Let’s examine each of those choices.
Constantly Adding New Customers
This can be costly and time consuming. In fact, the cost of acquiring new customers can be 5-6 times that of maintaining your current list. You will also receive less referrals from new customers since you haven’t had a chance to build rapport and prove yourself to them.
With all that in mind, why do we so easily fall into that trap? I’ve been guilty of this myself so allow me to offer some explanations from personal experience. The Internet is filled with an abundance of promotional techniques while new ones are being offered every day. It is very tempting to try these latest tips in hopes of attaining gobs of new prospects/customers.
Although some of these techniques may be very good, it is easy to lose sight of our existing customers and their needs. In my discussions with other business owners, I have found that some are always looking for that super customer who is going to place a really large order and give them tons of referrals. Unfortunately, your chances of achieving that are much greater with an existing customer versus a new one.
Maintaining Your Current Customer Base
If you treat your prospects/customers VERY well, most will not leave. In fact most businesses lose customers not because of poor quality, a competitors prices or even a bad experience. Most customers are lost because they feel they were not appreciated. Here are some tips to minimize attrition.
Develop a Plan
Make a list of the top 5 reasons you feel someone should do business with you. Prioritize that list. Come up with 2 or 3 policies or plans of action that will assure those 5 reasons (goals) are met. Develop a schedule you can follow to track when these plans are to be implemented. Regularly review this plan to monitor its effectiveness.
Welcome Customer Complaints
Let’s face it. Most of us do not like negative feedback. We would rather have someone tell us how great our product or service is. Everyone needs a little praise but some honest negative feedback can be far more beneficial. This is because it exposes a problem or situation that is costing you lost revenues and customers.
Most people who have a complaint won’t take the time to write. They will just stop doing business with you. Therefore it is important to acknowledge their concern and respond to it right away. I have experienced several situations both as a business owner and a customer whereby the prompt professional manner with which the concern was addressed definitely solidified the relationship. This fact cannot be over emphasized. Welcoming a customer complaint gives you a chance to build rapport and fine tune your business at the same time.
To facilitate customer feedback, a survey or feedback form should be included in every order that you ship. If someone else does your fulfillment, an e-mail notice or post card sent a few days after the product is received also works well. It would helpful to have a separate page on your site devoted to this subject as well.
Suggest Other Related Sites
Don’t be afraid of losing a customer by referring them to another site that may provide answers, training, etc. or subjects your visitors require help on. Most people will respect you for that and view it as value added service. If you are still concerned, here is a little HTML trick I use on my own site when creating external links.
On the link to another site in the format
A href=http://www.anothersite.com, just insert the following code immediately after without parentheses (target="_blank"). When your visitor clicks on that link, it opens a new browser window for that new page, while keeping your current page open so they never actually leave your site.
You are always going to lose some customers, but by practicing the techniques suggested in this article, you should be able to lower that number while increasing the amount of good referrals you receive.
About the author:
Barry Craft has helped thousands of entrepreneurs develop more income from their online businesses. He publishes "Cyber Marketing News" which provides the latest Internet marketing tips.
:To contact see details below.
barry@profitmatters.com
http://www.profitmatters.com/
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