Have you ever thought about how loyal your customers are? If so, how do you now measure this loyalty? Do you measure and track your customer attrition rate? Do you periodically survey your customers?
Whether you know it or not, your profits may be continually drained by customers who left you because of less than superior service. You may also be unaware that the customers who do transact business with you may be doing business with your competitor as well, leaving profits on the table you could better harvest with improved loyalty.
The impact of a lost dissatisfied customer is much greater than you may realize. Not only do you lose the revenue they generate, they also tell other potential customers who may choose to not do business with you as well.
5 Simple Ways to Improve Customer Loyalty
- Thank customers for their business. Few businesses do this. If customers know they are TRULY appreciated, they are more likely to do business with you.
- Periodically survey customers about their experiences with you to ascertain what actions you can take to improve the level of customer service being provided.
- Provide special incentives to customers who have done business with you for an extended period of time. For example, invite them to loyal customer events not available to new customers.
- Broaden your view of delivering customer service beyond just service at point of sale. Customer service is an ongoing lifelong experience. Identify every point where a customer comes in contact with you and make sure those touch points are fully optimized. Touch points could include, but are not limited to, how inbound phone calls are received and what type of follow-up program you have after the sale.
- Educate all of your employees about the importance of world class customer service and how not delivering it can ultimately impact them. Many companies have gone out of business for the simple reason that they did not focus on the customer and delivered poor customer service.
Take action today and focus on one step you can immediately take to improve loyalty. If resources permit, assign someone in your organization responsibilities for improving customer loyalty.
