You worked hard to build a solid customer base and want to make sure you keep people coming back year after year. With competition coming from everywhere these days, keeping customers can feel like a constant battle—but it doesn't have to be. Here, OPEN Forum experts give you their best advice on dealing with all types of customers.
More times than not, an angry customer is a person headed for the door—and possibly to an online review site. Of course you want to please everyone who walks into your business, but chances are at some point, someone will get angry. It costs five times as much to create a new customer as it does to keep one you already have, Steve Strauss explains. So what does it take to calm the storm? Simply making amends—95 percent of your unhappy customers will stick around if you just make them happy that one time.
It should be a no-brainer, but it's often not: the more you work on relationships with customers, the more likely they are to stick around. Wise Bread's Julie Rains lists 16 ways you can keep customers coming back and encourage loyalty. She recommends building trust with your customers by being an adviser, meeting expectations and helping customers reach the results they want. It's important to also grow with your customers by continually being innovative and being able to meet their needs. Finally, continue to connect with them—human interaction speaks volumes when it comes to an individual's relationship with a business.
In the era of social media and multiple brand options, building customer loyalty is your best weapon. At last month's New York Times Small Business Summit, successful entrepreneurs discussed what it takes to build loyalty and keep customers in the digital age.
Are you pushing customers toward a purchase? Stop. Let customers choose your company. "Don’t be afraid of losing the sale;" Ivana Taylor writes. "Be afraid of attracting a customer who needs something your business doesn't deliver very well." Other examples of bosses behaving badly: Overpromising and under-delivering, being unreachable and making a customer feel stupid. These may feel obvious but it's a lot easier to fall into a bad habit than you think. Luckily, these habits are easy to modify; it just takes a little pro-activeness.
Asking a customer how they feel about your product or service is a great way to make them feel involved and to figure out what you are doing right or wrong. Mashable's Leyl Master Black rounds up four easy ways to get feedback online. Getting feedback could mean conducting an online survey or asking customers to vote on your product's new design.
Source: http://www.openforum.com/idea-hub/topics/marketing/article/how-to-keep-customers-an-open-forum-guide
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