First sales are always more difficult than repeat sales. For this reason, owners of small businesses constantly look for ways to keep their customers happy. Regardless of what you sell, there are a lot of ways you can maintain a loyal customer base. Here are a few ideas:
Stay an Expert In Your Field
Continuously strive to stay up to date in your field. It is key to your success that your customers perceive you as very knowledgeable in your industry. Since information is so readily available on the Internet, customers are becoming more and more knowledgeable every day. You don’t want a situation where your customer knows more than you, the perceived expert. So make it a priority to get the training and stay up to date on what’s happening in your industry. Your customers will reward you for your commitment to constant growth.
Resolve Customer Problems Quickly
Customers rarely tell you straight out if they perceive an issue, so it is important to stay intuitive. You might want to take your customer’s pulse periodically by reaching out and asking if everything is going well, or if there are areas that need improvement in your working relationship.
It is most important to avoid the SODDI defense at all costs when you do hear of a problem your customer is encountering (some other dude did it). Take the blame gracefully, after all it’s your company and therefall anything that goes wrong ultimately stops with you. Then solve the problem fast. Customers are used to the SODDI defense and rarely encounter vendors who work fast to solve their problems. Instead of focusing on the problem, they will recall a positive resolution of the situation and that will keep them coming back for more. In fact, it is often that case that those “problem” customers often end up referring new business your way because of their satisfaction with your service.
Help Your Customer Recall the Reasons They Picked You
This is no time to be humble; continually point out your advantages over your competitors, and praise your customer for being so perceptive and astute to choose you. Everyone deserves a little praise, so why not also take the opportunity to remind your customer of your competitive advantages while praising them for making a good choice in you.
The ultimate goal when creating loyal customers is to give them service that is so good, everyone else pales in comparison. Give them such great service automatically, and they will demand the same for years to come. That’s customer loyalty.
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