How many businesses concentrate most of their marketing efforts on bringing in new customers – and pay very little attention to keeping the ones they’ve already got? Any marketing program worth its salt will get prospects to visit your website or bricks and mortar store. Then, if you’re a good sales person with an appealing product, you can sell anything to anyone once. But it’s the customer experience that decides whether you’ll be able to make the second sale (and whether your customers will become loyal customers) – and if they bother to tell anyone else about you. A happy customer will tell their friends – who will become customers, who will tell their friends, who will become customers…. you know how it works. That multiplier effect is where you get serious profit.
Statistics show it is 5x easier to get a customer to come back than to win them in the first place.
It’s vital that all the hard work educating your prospect to buy doesn’t stop once they become a customer. If you want loyal customers, who just have to tell everyone why they should buy from you, it’s what you do that counts. Make sure your customer service system gives them a positive and consistent experience – regardless of which staff member works with them. In order to create loyal customers and repeat sales, they should know:
- What to expect from you
- What you need from them to get started
- How to get the most from your product or service
- How/who to contact if they have a question or problem
- What their chosen product or service will cost, and your terms of payment
This information might come in the form of a simple explanation at point of sale (which has been carefully scripted so that all the relevant points are covered), or a customer kit, order confirmation form or confirmation email. It’s not how you do it that matters. What’s vital is ensuring that your customer is crystal clear about the way things will work. And making that experience special. Great customer service is a critical driver of strong repeat sales and word of mouth marketing. Get it right and your loyal customers will become your sales force.
