Getting new customers is expensive, and the time and money spent on a repeat customer is a whopping 67 percent more than a new one. So, sure, put some energy into new business development, but make sure your salespeople know that coming up with creative ways to sell more to your current customers is just as important.
Here are 7 proven techniques to do just that:
1. Provide Guarantees.
A guarantee is a powerful tool for keeping your customers when they might otherwise go elsewhere. With a good guarantee, you tell your customers where and how to complain, and that complaining is worth their time and effort. It also shows that you care. A good guarantee is unconditional, easy to understand, meaningful, easy to invoke and easy to collect on.
2. Think lifetime value, not transactional value.
To keep customers coming back to Zane's Cycles (and away from the superstores), Chris Zane offers a wildly attractive incentive to parents who buy their children's bikes from him: He'll credit the full cost of last year's bicycle toward an upgrade every year up to a 20-inch wheel. "We won't make money until they buy their second bike from us at full price," says the Branford, Connecticut entrepreneur. In the meantime, parents buy accessories for their growing children and, predicts Zane, are impressed enough with his commitment to service that they become customers for life.
3. Ask for Feedback
If you don't know what your customer thinks about you, your business, your product and your services, then you might as well close shop.
People will endorse your business not because they think it looks good, but because they know it is good. If they have problems with your services, customers are the best source of objective advice on how to make improvements. So have a process in place where you regularly ask them for feedback. And once they've given it to you, let them know how you are going to use it. They will begin to feel involved in your business, and are more likely to send other people your way.
4. Reward them for being Loyal
Loyalty marketing programs are designed to engender loyalty and increase sales from your best customers. When properly designed and executed flawlessly, loyalty programs provide a vital link between your business and your customers, improving customer satisfaction and increasing sales. Here are some commonly used ideas for creating your own loyalty program:
- preferable rates for loyal customers
- provide bonus product or service if they have bought before
- programs that promote multiple purchases (buy 3 and get the 4th free)
- Points program - each purchase is worth points. When they amass a certain number of points they get a reward of some kind
5. Implement a Referral process
Be very clear about who you want as a referral and why. The quality of referrals you receive depends on how well your customers understand what you are looking for. The best way to do this is to write it down for them, or discuss it in some detail - don't assume they already know. At the conclusion of every sale, ask them if they know of any other people who would be interested in your service.
6. Stay in touch.
Sometimes you may not see your best customers as often as you'd like, so you need to work extra hard to keep yourself on their radar screens. Jack Mitchell, the CEO of The Mitchells Family of Stores in Farifield County, Connecticut, has his sales people contact customers by phone, email, and handwritten note "not trying to sell them anything, but letting them we're available to do alterations, or to come to their home, look at their closet and see what is still wearable," says Mitchell. He knows that if he keeps in touch with customers in a low-pressure way, his best customers will find their way back his four luxury clothing stores when the economy improves.
7. Remind customers of everything you offer.
Never assume that even your most reliable customers are completely aware of all the products and services you offer: you need to remind them regularly. Kelley Briggs, CEO of DesignWorks NY, a graphic design and marketing communications firm in Westchester County, New York, sends a personal letter to every customer once a year. She includes a list of her services with the ones they've used check off. "It reminds them of the types of projects we've worked on in that past year and shows them what services they did not use," she says. "It's an excellent cross selling tool." In recent years, clients who received the letter have signed on for additional projects such as annual reports, website design, and marketing strategy.
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