Welcome to 2020! Got a late start since I started the year with a good flu bug.
Now that I'm feeling better let's continue my series on Improving the Profit Formula by discussing how to increase customer retention.
The sales portion of the profit formula demands the largest portion of the owner's time. This ties in with the idea that every business is, at its heart, a marketing business. You are not in the business of what you do or produce. You are in the business of getting new customers, keeping them as long as possible, and selling to them as much as possible while they are your customers.
A 10 percent increase in customer retention
- Tracking customers is the first step toward reducing customer losses.
- Provide a quality product or service in a way that WOWs your customer.
- Make sure your customers remember you. Newsletters are a great tool for this.
- Create a system to eliminate repeat errors.
- Perform a customer audit periodically to pinpoint weaknesses in your systems.
- Create a customer call-back system to check on the quality of the product or service the customer received. While on the phone, ask for referrals and explore selling additional products or services.