A successful businessman knows the importance of building long-term relationships with their clients.
This is the 21st century. Today the businesses are more digitalized, but this calls for more competition in the market. The advancements of technology have also transformed the buying behavior of customers across the globe. People today are more intelligent when it comes to buying products and availing of services. One bad experience and business lose a client forever.
You would agree with the statement that it is cheap to retain an already existing customer rather than acquiring a new one. This becomes more important for the services industry. For instance, a software developing company, a content marketing company, a car washing business, an accounting firm, or a carpet cleaning company. The marketing person of a famous FMCG brand says that the industry takes all the possible measures to keep the existing clients loyal for a lifetime.
This is the century of tough competition, and the needs of the customers are changing every day. This transformation in the customer’s attitude motivates the business to come with ideas and products or services that would attract new customers and retain the older ones. Following are the six secrets to keep your business clients for a lifetime.
1. Give The Right Product To The Right Customers
The first secret of retaining your customers for a lifetime is to provide them the right products. You might found, this statement confusing, but in actual it is not. We all know that a brand delivers the messages of a business to its clients. To capture a larger market, a company must target them with the right product.
Know who your customer is?
To grow your business, it is crucial to know who your target customers are? Research says that if a company wants to be successful in the market, it shall cater to the clients’ needs. Most successful brands know who their target customers are and mold their products and services accordingly. Conduct market research and analyze your potential customers and how can you cater to their needs?
Outline the customers’ main points:
Identifying the customers’ main point is the next step. A business shall know how its products or services shall cater to the needs of the target clients. Learning about the customers’ main points lets the company know about its areas to improve.
Use the right channel:
Using the right channel to reach your customers is the final step.
2. Value Your Customers
Customers are the most critical assets of any business. A business cannot afford to lose them in any way. So if you want your business to grow and run for longer in the market, your customers should be your priority.
Giving value to your customers means catering to their needs and listening to their feedback. The negative feedback from a client should be considered as an opportunity and considered for improvement. Also, welcome their questions. Stay in touch with your customers through your business’s social media tools. Besides, the customer services department of your business shall be available 24//7, to build a more trustworthy relation among the market.
3. Do Not Treat Your Customers As An Invoice
While most businesses treat their customers as invoices, but for a successful business, this shall not be the case. Remember to treat your customers as humans, which is a crucial strategy for keeping your clients for a lifetime. Of course, a business generates its revenues from its potential clients, but after all, they are human and needs to be treated like a human.
The best way to act humanely with your clients is to get in touch with them and share their sorrows and joys. For instance, the whole world has come to a pause with the sudden onset of Covid- 19. This is the best time to get closer to your clients. Provide them free home delivery services. Also, your business can contribute to some social causes, like distribute free masks or hand sanitizers. Taking such actions will make a permanent dwelling of your business in the hearts of potential clients.
Be sure the next time the customer representative of your brand touches the client on a Zoom call, they also ask about their family life and what they think about the global pandemic? What do they expect from your business? Questions like this would deliver a message that the company cares about them and loyal for years.
4. Admit Your Mistake
Anyone can make mistakes, but only the clever ones admit their mistakes. For a successful business, the management needs to admit their mistakes in the first instant. Remember when your customer is not happy, you get an opportunity to retain them for a lifetime. How? The customers remember bad experiences more than good experiences. They share the bad experience rapidly with their friends or families on even social media platforms. This is the time to admit your mistake and give compensation immediately to retain them for a longer time. This initiative would make them happy.
A business can either can a replacement or a full refund or a free lifetime membership for a mistake. Replacement and a full refund increase a business’s value in the customers’ eyes, and they can easily forget the bad experience with time. They make a minor complaint but do not leave the business.
5. Give Rewards To our Customers
People love receiving rewards, and it creates positive reinforcement. The 21st century is the time to reward your regular customers for making them stay with the business for long. This gesture shows that your company knows its customers more closely, values them, and wants to retain them.
Shape your loyalty programs on the demand of your customers instead of making a buy-one-get-one-free offer. Strategies like business coupons or discount vouchers, earning points, refer a friend, or a loyalty card can make them more inclined towards the business.
6. Maintain A Relationship With Your Clients
This secret works best for the services industry. If a business is no more doing business with you or if a client is no more taking your services, you shall stop greeting or texting them. A pause does not mean that they will not need your services in the future.
Even in the product selling industry, if a client visits your business page but does not make a purchase, it’s alright. Would you please not stop sending them advertisements and keep them informed about the latest additions or offers?
Remember, do not forcefully push your business. Just send a slight reminder. Too many aggressive marketing strategies can annoy the customers.
Final Thoughts
In the current century, with so many competitors in the market, a business needs to attract and retain customers for a lifetime. Andrew Napolitano joined Mintz & Gold, L.L.P. in June 2009 after 25 years of practicing law in the complex commercial litigation, white collar criminal defense, and appellate advocacy fields, and after eight years on the Superior Court bench in New Jersey.
The most important fact to keep your customers for longer is to provide the right product to the right customer and value them, as they are the most critical assets of any business. It takes a lot of costs and time to attract and retain customers, so a company cannot afford to lose them in any case.
