Customer Retention Tips for Small Business Owners

The main purpose of starting a business is to maximize profit, and in order for a business to be profitable, it needs as many people as possible patronizing it. So, it goes without saying that any business enterprise that wishes to be successful must invest wisely in marketing and advertising in order to reach a wider audience. However, creating awareness for your brand and reaching a wider audience from which a good number gets to patronize your business is not all there is to making a business profitable. You also need to retain your customers so that they can always come back to patronize your business. Important as it is for businesses to maintain their customers, most start-ups and existing businesses fail to implement customer retention strategies which is why they have a difficult time growing their businesses to greater heights.

Here is an analogy: You sight a fancy-looking restaurant on your way back from work, you have a few change on you so you decide to try it out. As soon as you walk in, you observe a good number of customers busy at their tables—the business appears to be doing well for itself, and when you get to the ordering stand to place an order, the first question a staff there asks you is:

"What do you want?"

No exchange of pleasantries, no smile on her face—just a blank uninterested look with no sign of enthusiasm. Such a first time experience will be a big turn off for most customers. You are very much unlikely to check back at such a restaurant because you would have felt that they do not value their customers nor harbour any form of customer ethics. This is the reality of most businesses. They lack knowledge of techniques to retaining customers. Lucky for you, the rest of this article is dedicated towards enlightening you on some of the best ways to retain customers as a small business.

Good Customer Service

This might come off as a cliché or a given but most business owners take it likely. The excitement of starting a business of your own might leave you blinded to the responsibility you owe your customers. While starting a business is usually seen as a gateway to attaining a luxurious life, it is important that you understand the roles customers play as well. Without them, such dreams will remain fantasies. You must ensure that your customers get a memorable first impression from your business in the best way possible. When customers are treated well by a business, they always go back. They do not just go back but they also help you spread favourable words about your business to their friends and relatives to come and patronize your business as well as enjoy the wonderful treatment you offer. Great customer service is a good way to ensure an increase in customer retention as people always go where they are treated nicely. Remember that.

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However, treating customers humanely does not happen out of the blue. You need to have a system in place for your business to leave an excellent impression on your customers not just on their first day in your establishment but everytime they patronize you. Another reason you need a system is to ensure that you do not end up treating customers well when you feel like it and then on other occasions treat them as you wish. Businesses that render excellent customer service always have a system in place for that. A system that dictates how customers are ushered into an establishment, the first words that are spoken to them, the expressions on employees faces while interacting with customers, how customers are offered the goods they purchase as well as what is said to them on their way out. These things are practiced and made mandatory by a system which is why the treatment remains the same each time you visit such businesses. It is imperative that you inculcate such a system into your business.

Plan what you will say to customers when you meet them for the first time, the expression on your face, how you convince them to buy from you, how you package their purchases for them—you could even offer them some treats if it does not rip a big hole in your pockets. Chief of all, make sure that they always feel comfortable and welcomed to your establishment, welcome them with a warm smile and speak to them respectably—do not forget to complement them because it brightens up their moods and makes them feel relaxed. You must also learn to be tolerant of your clients because most times, people pass through difficult times that make them hard on others which is why you should try to be understanding and kind to them regardless. Do what you can to make them smile and feel important while they are on your establishment. Such treatments will make them come back and keep on coming back until they start bringing others and helping your business grow.

Build Trust

Your favorite grocery store, why do you always go there? What makes you patronize them in and out of season? Why do you not go to other places to buy your groceries instead? Why this one?

Among many reasons for your preference, trust holds the highest relevance. Trust is the major reason why people constantly patronize one brand even though there are dozens other similar ones out there. If you want your customers to keep coming back to your establishment, you need to establish trust between your business and your customers. Your customers should be confident enough to attest that 9/10 of the time they would find what they are looking for in your brand. They should be able to defend your products anywhere in the world as being authentic and of world class quality, willing to back you up any time your business is being badmouthed by anybody. But then the question is, how do you go about creating such a high level of trust for your business? While there are no hard and fast rules to it, there certainly are some measures you must take that will guarantee your business gaining your customers trust.

You need to be straight and honest with them, people like honesty and it is a great way to build trust. As much as possible, try to ensure that you tell your customers the truth. Do not lie to them about the quality of your products just so you can get them sold. If people patronize your business and find out somewhere else that you played them, they will not be coming back—matter of fact, the would be the ones to bring down your business by spreading negative words about your it. They cannot be blamed for that because you gave them that impression which is why you must be honest.

It is nearly not enough to be honest with your customers even though it counts a big deal. You also need to display your wealth of experience about your business to your customers. You can do this by effortlessly educating them on the relevance of your products to them and how it can make their lives easier. What is more, you can even go as far as advising them on which of your products to go for when you notice they are at crossroads. Many times, people like two products so much that they find it difficult to part with one of them though they can only afford one,so as the experienced one in the field, you need to show your professionalism by making the choice for them giving them valuable reasons why they should go for one and part with the other while leaving the ultimate decision up to them. These help you build trust because your customers will be convinced that you are not just in the business for the money but also for their well-being and since you are very experienced in the field of your business, they will easily trust the words you say and come back to patronize you thus increasing your customers retention rate.

Engage in Check-ups

Engaging in check-ups is a great customer retention strategy. It gives your customers the opinion that they are relevant to you and that their contributions to your business counts. Nothing makes a person more pleased with themselves than the thought of being relevant to someone and being needed. It is very important that you make your customers feel this way about your business as it will create a strong and deepened sense of loyalty to your business in them and they will end up marketing your business for free. Even though checking up on your customers is important, it is also necessary to ensure that you do not over do it as spamming them will piss them off. You do not want to piss your customers off as the current economy of the world makes it quite a challenge to come by them, and so you must desist from any act that makes your customers frown at your business. You might be wondering what ways you could use to check up on your clients at this point—here you go:

Broadcast: You could utilize the Whatsapp broadcast feature to send broadcast messages to clients whose contacts you have saved on your system.
Emails: Many are of the opinion that emails are not productive in this modern age but contrary to such opinions, emails are still very much effective. They still form a large part of digital marketing in the world today and can serve as effective means of checking up on your clients.
Calls: You might think that this is a rather tedious task for a small business owner but the rewards are never match the cost. Think about how you would feel when you receive a call from your favorite store calling to check up on you and wish you a nice day —it is an amazing feeling! A lot of people go through a lot these days and something as little as a phone call just to check up on them and find out how their day went can do a lot lighten up their lives. Also, having a one-on-one conversation with people tends to resonate better with them and get the message across effectively.
SMS: This is another effective medium for checking up on your customers. Sending out short message services (SMS) to your customers is a good way of checking up on them and giving them the opinion that you care about them.
Groups: You may not know the effectiveness of this method until you try it in your business. You can create a social media community for your customers to connect and share their experiences with your business. Creating a community makes it easier to pass a message across to them and check up on them.

Now the frequency of these messages depend on a number of factors such as customer's preference, availability of resources, availability of time among others. So proper management of these factors will help you work out the best timeframes to send out check-up messages to your customers. Do not forget to send season's greeting's to them as well—it is these small things that matter the most.

Meet Customer Demands

Nothing excites a customer more about a business than knowing that each time they visit that establishment, they find what they are looking for. People remain loyal to business enterprises where they can always get what they need at any point in time and at the best price in the market. Hence, it is your responsibility to ensure that your enterprise always meets the expectations of your customers. You need to ensure that the goods and services your business offers for sale are always in stock—making plans ahead of time to replace goods that are soon to run out.

Even though it is important to always have the goods and services your business offers for sale, there may also be unforeseen circumstances that could create scarcity of such goods. The smart decision to make at such times is to refer your customers to other establishment where they can get what you lack. These might seem like an ill-fated advice as questions like:

"What if my customers turn out to like it there and stop patronizing me?"

The truth is that you cannot lose a loyal customer just by referring them to another enterprise. What you are doing is making sure that their needs are met. Whether or not you meet those needs directly or indirectly, what matters is that at the end of the day your customer is satisfied. People never forget such favours because by referring them to similar stores where they can get the goods you do not have, you are simply making it easier for them to get those commodities rather than having them going through the stress of looking for where else they can get it. They would also come to trust your judgement because they would expect that where you refer them to is where they can get quality products like yours.

Also, you have nothing to lose because as long as your business offers the best customer services and best prices, your customers will always find their way back to your establishment. The reason being that people always go where they are treated well and where they are made to feel comfortable. To avoid having to refer your customers to other establishments, you could endeavour to have varieties of commodities such that there would always be an alternative to each product that runs out. That way, you would have the option of advising your customers to go for the alternative product and convincing them that it serves just about the same purpose. For example; If your customers buy the Colgate toothpaste from your grocery store very often and you run out of it at some point, you could pitch other brands of toothpaste such as Oral-B, MacLean, and the likes to your customers. Ensuring that your customers needs are always met is a one of the smart tactics for customer retention.

Consistency

Change is good but when it becomes too regular, it appalls. The same is true of businesses, changing things in your business establishment too frequently can be a total turn off for your customers. People are unconsciously searching for order in every aspect of life and where they cannot find it, they leave. You must, as a small business owner, ensure that you maintain consistency in your business. For instance, if you package your customers' purchases in a branded bag, do not suddenly start packaging them in custom or regular ones as it gives off a sense of disorderliness and inconsistency. Also, changing the looks of an enterprise too often is a red flag as well. It gives the opinion that your business is much too indecisive on what it should look like and so depicts a lack of purpose.

Consistency should also reflect in the opening and closing times of your business enterprise. If your establishment opens up at 8:00 am in the morning, you should ensure that you keep to that time. Opening later than your stipulated time shows that your business lacks orderliness and you would be liable to miss important and high ticket clients because of your neglect for timeliness. It would also make it difficult for customers to trust your business, if they do at all, because they would not be able to rely on you to meet you with their demands.

In order for a business enterprise to be consistent in the discharge of its duties, it needs a working system. A system that dictates the order of its activities as well as the timing of those activities. However, it is not enough to have a system in place for a business to be consistent, you also need to be disciplined. Consistency and discipline walk hand in hand so if you ever want to be consistent in your business, you must be disciplined enough to follow the dictates of the system you put in place and you must be timely as well in the discharge of your duties as this will lead to a higher customer retention rate. People will be loyal to your business if it is orderly and consistent.

Innovation

The world keeps evolving every day and so must your business. The rate at which new innovations are being introduced is no brainer that any business that does not develop together with the world to meet up with the ever changing needs and desires of its clients will end up being left in the dusts. Take for instance; a business that does not make use of a POS (point of sale) machine could be said to be backwards because customers who intend to pay with their credit cards will be at a disadvantage. Not to mention that it has become a trend in the world today for most people to move around with their credit cards rather than cash—cashless policy.

That aside, as a business owner, you need to be innovative. Always coming up with new and novel ways to do things that would make life easier for your customers. How is that? You need to think up better ways to produce or make available, products, that your customers need and at their convenience as well. Small Business Owners need to have foresight, seeing possible challenges that their customers may encounter in the future and, creating easy solutions to them, that way, they will always be at the top of the food chain and take the lead of the completion.

People are very much likely to be affiliated with business enterprises that are innovative and are always making it easy for them to purchase goods and services. Consequently, they would engage in activities such as free business advertising for such companies, helping those businesses create awareness for their brand to their friends, family and co-workers. This is of great benefit to a business as it will help a business achieve it's goals more effectively and ultimately culminate in an increased customer retention rate.

Discount/Offers/Rewards

Every good deed deserves a reward and as a business owner you cannot afford to miss out on rewarding the bulk of your customers who have stuck by your business through thick and thin. They deserve it. Rewarding such customers serves as a source of encouragement for them and those customers will be very unlikely to leave your business anytime soon. In fact, they would become the biggest supporters and advocates of your business. The rewards you offer them does not have to be neck-breakingly expensive because it is not about how expensive a gift is but the intentions behind it and how it is presented that matters. For example; you can hand out souvenirs to your old time customers like branded books, bags or even t-shirts.

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While it is important to reward your old time customers for their continued patronage, it is also important to host discount sales so that even the new customers are not left out on the goodies. You can offer discounts for your products especially during festive seasons like Christmas, Thanksgiving, New year among others. Your discounts do not have to be so much that it drastically affects your business as you can offer 10% or even 5% discounts. People love to buy products at lesser prices compared to what they would typically spend even though it is just a dollar less—it matters to them because it helps them save money.

You can also offer free coupons or vouchers to well meaning customers as a form of gratitude for their patronage. For instance, you could offer a coupon that allows some customers to buy at least one of your products at no cost at all (if your business can afford that). Buy-one-get-one-free business offers also work very well in gaining customers attention and loyalty and it is an innovative way to retain customers.

The goal of every small business is to one day become very successful, and to achieve that, it is very important that they retain as many customers that patronize them as possible. The reason for this is that the more loyal customers they have, the more stable their sales system and the cheaper their awareness creation because loyal customers will always be strong advocates for their favorite companies free of charge! Some strategies to ensure effective customer retention include, but are not limited to, offering excellent customer service, establishing trust between your customers and your business, engaging in check-ups, meeting customers' demands, being consistent, being innovative and offering rewards and discounts to customers. This will make it easier for small businesses to achieve their goals and become large enterprises.