It is easy to get excited by a nice big order (and so you should) but to grow your small business the long-term benefit comes from gaining repeat sales from your existing clients and keeping these customers ordering from you for as long as possible, or in marketing terms, increasing your customer retention rate.
Did you know that typically nearly 65% of business comes from existing clients? Did you know that increasing your customer retention rate by 5% can result in a 25% profit increase?
Keeping a consistent customer retention rate is a challenge but there are lots of different techniques you can try to see what works best for you and your business. Whilst this may sound like it could be a time-consuming task, it’s worth your while.
Here are 5 main areas you can focus on, along with some ways you can impact on your customer retention rate:
Your Team
- Develop your core values, vision, and purpose you could even do this as a team exercise!
- Have regular 121 reviews and feedback sessions with your team
- Encourage feedback from your team on how the business could be improved
Feedback
- Implement a sales follow up process to secure feedback following deliveries or completion of work
- Make regular contact with customers to show you care, share tips and even introduce new products and/or services
- Review and improve your customer experience by looking at all interactions customers will have with your business website, social media, email, letters etc.
Offering
- Ensure you are always focused on continuous improvement with your products and/or services and communicate these improvements with customers
- Ask customers what they want from you next what else? What’s missing?
- Ensure your offering is clear to all customers with clear differentiators
Community
- Be present at social events, on social media platforms and with added value website content (e.g., blogs addressing customer problems)
- Secure and promote testimonials and case studies to further cement your authority and ability in your field
- Manage expectations so you can over deliver and delight customers
Rewards
- Develop a customer loyalty program
- Develop a product add on scheme to reward for additional purchases
- Send Christmas cards and/or gifts to clients
Did you know it costs up to 6 times more to win a new customer compared to selling to an existing customer?
So, whilst it is easy to spend time marketing to attract new business, there is a significant benefit in focusing your time on your existing customer base to maximise sales and create the stability required to grow your business further.
Take a look at the other ways to grow your business:
- Lead Generation
- Lead Conversation Rates
- Increasing Transaction Frequency
- Increasing Transaction Value
- Reducing Business Costs
- Reducing Overheads
If you are confident that you can take these principles and put them into action thenmake a plan, outline your goals, measure progress, and ensure you stay on track with regular reviews. It may take12 months before you start to see some real changes to your profitability so keep up the momentum!
For a complimentary Discovery Call to discuss the most appropriate level of support, a personalised quote and a guarantee of our best possible service, please complete the form below and one of our senior advisors will contact you.
Or if you prefer, please call 01296 681341 for our Wingrave Bucks Accountants office.
