Having a business is more than just finding a customer, selling something and moving on to the next one. It's all about making sure your customers keep coming to you… and spending a lot of money!
But how can you make sure your customers stay customers for the rest of your life? What strategies can you use to continue bringing them back more? A planned customer retention plan is something that every small business set up should have. That sounds great, but what is the final plan and what should it include?
Make a foundation
Before embarking on a final plan, you need to understand your business's position in relation to its record keeping. Ask yourself three questions:
1. Do you know how many customers you have lost in the last 12 months?
2. If you know how many, do you know why they stopped working with you?
3. Have you ever measured the impact of this loss on your line?
Before you can put the last operating system in place, you should answer these questions. They are the key to understanding and implementing an effective storage strategy. Let's look at each of them in turn.
How Much Lost?
It is important to know how many people have stopped doing business with you at any one time. Keep a database of all your regular customers; how often do they buy; what they buy and how much. Monthly review the details and see if you can identify troubling styles. Has the standard order rate dropped in the last 3 months? Has one standard customer order completely dried up? If someone orders a large list of items each month but suddenly stops buying one grade, why not?
If you can't track the customers you release, how can you keep them or try them again?
Why Did He Turn His Back on You?
Armed with the knowledge of who is throwing you out, the fight back can start with sincerity! There are good reasons sometimes why a business is a song - the owner can die, move away, or shut down. There is not much you can do about that! But what about the most troubling reasons? The quality of your product is down the hill; the customer feels no longer receiving the amount of money; your general service standards declined. These are just some of the goal setting shareware that you can use.
If you see a discount in the business and you can see who is involved, pick up the phone and talk! Find out what the problem is. If you can get them back to the fold, that's fine but if it's really late, at least collect some important information about where the business is going wrong.
Why lose it?
You may think that an unequal customer here and there will not be a big impact on your life. Think again! Remember, it’s not just one sale, it’s a time for all free sales. If a customer spends $ 1,000 a month with you. He goes to the sunset and never sees him again. Imagine if he had been doing business with you for the next 20 years - that's $ 240,000!
Interested now? You have to be! Working the financial impact of releasing only one customer can bring home an impact on the business. This should motivate you to take action and make you work on a maintenance plan.
Your Storage System
Now that you've confirmed that you need a customer retention system, what should it really include?
1. Have a plan that allows you to answer all the questions we have just reviewed. Understand what is going on in the business, so that you can identify and fix things. Make sure you know who you lost, why you lost them and how much they have and how much they will cost you
2. Gather your staff regularly and remind them of the importance of keeping your customers safe. If you don't put them on the board you have no hope
3. During your staff meetings there are time for discussion so that everyone can come up with ideas on how to stick to your customers.
4. Use good ideas and weigh the results to find out what works and what doesn't
A good storage plan can serve as a good marketing strategy; they get the same results - a profit contribution. So, sit down and think about the steps you can take to keep your customers safe.
I saw a sign in the store the other day, it said, "It's not how many come in, how many come back what's important." That doesn't mean at all!
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