Customers are vital to the existence and continuation of small businesses. Without customers utilizing your products and services, your business would cease to exist. While you may have heard that customers are the lifeblood of any business, you may be wondering what steps you can and should take to attract them to your business and keep them coming back.
Customers Drive Revenue
One of the main reasons customers are essential is that they drive your business revenue. Through purchasing and utilizing your business’s services, they are effectively providing the revenue your business needs to continue to operate.1
Customers Help Advertise Your Business
Word-of-mouth advertising is one of the most cost-effective forms of advertising for small businesses. Consumers are more likely to patronize a business when someone they know has had a positive experience with them. Keeping your customers happy makes them more likely to leave positive reviews and refer others to your business.1
Customers Provide Valuable Feedback for Your Company
Customers help provide valuable feedback about your service, products, and other aspects of the purchasing experience. By utilizing this feedback, you may be able to appeal to others in your target market and increase your sales.1
Tips for Keeping Your Customers Happy
Now that you know the importance of keeping your customers happy and coming back, you must make a plan to ensure they are satisfied with every interaction they have.
1. Personalize Correspondence
Your customers want to feel like they are No. 1, not just one in a pool of customers getting the same generic advertising and deals. Craft correspondence, discounts, or sales offers to each type of customer and use personalization in your advertising, email correspondence, and customer service interactions.2
2. Listen to Customer Feedback
It is essential to remember that all feedback, even negative feedback, may be used to improve your company and its services. Encourage your customers to provide feedback through surveys and reviews. Then, take that feedback and information and find ways to improve their customer experience. If you have a specific complaint, acknowledge it, rectify it, and follow up to see if the customer was satisfied with the resolution.2
3. Empower Your Employees to Handle Customer Complaints
To deliver excellent customer service, you must ensure that your customer’s needs are met, and their complaints are addressed promptly. Ensure that your employees are trained on how to handle customer complaints and allow them to handle and rectify customer complaints without constantly seeking approval. This will help establish that your customers get a prompt response and resolution to their problems or concerns.2
When you understand how vital customers are to your success and implement policies and procedures to keep them happy, they will return again and again and refer your business to friends and family, setting your business up to thrive.
Important Disclosures:
The opinions voiced in this material are for general information only and are not intended to provide specific advice or recommendations for any individual.
All information is believed to be from reliable sources; however, LPL Financial makes no representation as to its completeness or accuracy.
This article was prepared by WriterAccess.
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Footnotes:
1 “Customer: Definition and How to Study Their Behavior for Marketing,” Investopedia, https://www.investopedia.com/terms/c/customer.asp
2 “5 Ways Small Businesses Can Deliver Big Customer Service,” Forbes, https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesbusinesscouncil/2023/03/13/5-ways-small-businesses-can-deliver-big-customer-service/