When you’re constantly looking to acquire more clients, customers or patients it’s easy to forget about your most prized asset—your EXISTING ones!
This is a mistake I see often.
In some ways, it’s easy to understand why existing customers are neglected, but it’s no excuse.
Growing your business is challenging, especially at the moment (I don’t need to tell you that!). But having strategies to retain existing customers and to maximise profits from them are without doubt the quickest, easiest and most cost-effective ways to grow your business AND give you the income and earnings you desire.
So let’s take a look at the different tactics you can use right now to capitalise on the relationship you have with your existing customers…
STRATEGY #1: INCREASE YOUR PRICES/FEES ANNUALLY
Focussing on your ‘Acres Of Diamonds ’ (your clients, customers or patients) is the quickest and easiest way to grow your business and attain your targets!
Whilst to some increasing fees or prices might seem counter-intuitive in a tough marketplace, the simple fact is the majority of business owners do undercharge for the value they offer.
We all know that the best customers return for value, rather than price.
There’s a significant element of added value which you can capitalise on—and increasing your prices is the easiest way to do this.
Looking to increase your prices or fees by at least 10% per year will make a huge difference to your profits!
STRATEGY #2: WOW YOUR CUSTOMERS WITH MOMENTS OF TRUTH (MOT)
One of the best ways to add value, build strong relationships and retain customers is to use MOT.
I will discuss MOT often in these pages, but if you’re new to my work, MOT are the steps you take at each interaction with your customers to ensure their experience with you is exceptional. If you focus on every interaction you have with a customer and make this the BEST it can be each time, what you’re doing is creating a world-class service.
You’ll retain far more customers and strengthen the bond you have with them, making them less susceptible to offers from your competition.
STRATEGY #3: TELL THEM WHAT YOU SELL
I know this sounds almost ridiculous, but guess what? Your customers don’t know what you sell.
How many times have you spoken to a customer and they’ve turned to you and said something like, ‘We’ve just gone to ABC company for XYZ.’ Only for you to turn round to them and say, ‘Didn’t you know we do that?’
This is more common than you think. I guarantee it’s happening right now!
Plus, it also brings into focus that if they don’t know what you offer, they won’t even think of buying it. Making them aware of what you sell will prevent many customers from sourcing these products/services from other suppliers and also increase the likelihood of them buying from you.
The 2 easiest ways to do this are as follows…
- Include a list of your products/ services with short descriptions in your newsletter (see next strategy). This can either be within the newsletter itself or as an
- Send a letter 4 times a year making customers aware of what you A good way to do this is to use a tick-box approach whereby you ask them to tick the products/ services they would like more information on. You then follow up with those who want more information. This strategy alone will yield significant income opportunities for you.
STRATEGY #4: SEND A MONTHLY PRINTED NEWSLETTER
Sending customers a monthly printed newsletter should be compulsory for businesses!
This is still one of the least used strategies, but sending a printed monthly newsletter to customers is one of the best things you can do.
Done right, it can achieve all of the following for you.
- Help to retain customers
- Get customers to buy new products or services from you
- Motivate customers to buy more existing products or services from you
- Generate more referrals
- Acquire more clients, customers or patients
To begin with, keep it simple. 4 pages is ample, but your goal should be to increase to 8 pages eventually.
STRATEGY #5: SEGMENT YOUR CUSTOMER LIST
Segmenting your customer list is something that very few businesses ever do. Instead, they treat every customer in the same way. However, customers are not created equally.
Pareto’s ’80/20 Rule’ is applicable to your customer base. 80% of your profit will come from 20% of your customers. 80% of your headaches come from 20% of your customers, and so on. It is vital that you identify who your best customers are, so you can focus on giving them the attention they deserve.
STRATEGY #6: CONTACT YOUR BEST CUSTOMERS
Now you’ve segmented your customer list, you can start to communicate more often with your best customers.
Of course ‘how’ you communicate with them depends on what you sell and can include meeting your better customers in person, by telephone, by letter or by email (ideally a mixture of two or more). This is such a simple strategy, but it is always successful.
STRATEGY #7: CUSTOMER APPRECIATION EVENT/SALE
When things get back to ‘normal’, once a year you should organise a ‘Customer Appreciation Event/Sale’ either at your office, at a local hotel/restaurant or simply by letter or email to thank your best customers. Once again, you’ll be surprised how much extra business this generates for you.
There are, of course, many more strategies you can use to generate more and more business from your customers. These 7 strategies are a good place to start!
