8 Steps to Attract Repeat Business & 8 Wise Whys !!!

**8 Steps of “How to Attract repeat Business”**

Demos & Training, Monitoring, Measuring, Experience, Information, Loyalty programs, Discounts & Incentives, Personal Notes, Go Over the Top !!

Wondering how to get repeat Business? Getting Customers to come back and buy from you again is the key to success. Here are four areas you should address to create Customer loyalty. Regardless of the size of your Business, you really rely on repeat Customers to survive. What if Apple only sold one iPhone to each of its Customers? What if Airlines only purchased aircraft from Boeing once? No Business can survive when most of their Customers are new each time.

1.Offer live Demos & Training

It is important to make customers comfortable with your products thru comprehensive Training & Demos. While recorded training can be helpful to your customers, there is nothing like Video chat so that your customer gets all their queries clarified and highly satisfied with your brand.

2. Utilize all kinds of Communication Channels . . .

such as Blogs, Social Media, one-to-one Live chats, video sessions, & Chat-bots to be available to your customers for every question or challenge – that they have – during their ustomer journey.

Monitoring. Before we go further, are you measuring it? If you don’t know the (%) of Customers that are new vs repeat, you’re likely not addressing the issue. Fortunately, this won’t take a lot of time or money. If you’re primarily an online Business, you can already do this by asking your Customers to set up a profile. You can’t ship the product without their address so you already have the data you need to compile the statistic. If you’re a brick & mortar Business, it takes more thought. How about a Customer Loyalty program? You can set up accounts or use the power of mobile – to allow users to check in at your store with their Smart-phone. How about starting or using your Email list? Offer a coupon that says something like “exclusive to our loyal Customers?” If a person uses that coupon, you know that’s a repeat Customer. Finally, taking time to get to know your Customers will generate repeat Business. An ice-breaker question that helps to measure this is to simply ask them, “Have you shopped at our store in the past”. Welcome them back if they say yes.

Measuring. These are only a few ways to measure repeat vs new Business. However you do it, remember that this is one of the most important stats you’ll collect for your Business. If any data is worth your time & money to collect, this is high on the list. Maybe you were collecting the data already and you know that you’re having trouble retaining Customers? Here are a few ways to encourage Customers to come back.

3. It with the Experience

There is nothing more important than the Customer experience. If they aren’t coming back, they likely didn’t have a good experience. Here’s what to check:

Employees– Your front-line employees who interact with Customers have to be good with people. If they’re not, can’t carry a conversation, aren’t friendly, or just don’t have the courtesy that attracts people to them in a positive way, they should not be on the front line. On the other hand, they shouldn’t be so friendly that your Customers feel awkward. Your employees should instinctively understand the balance between making Customers feel welcome while giving them opportunity to express their feelings.
Pricing– If they go to the big-box store down the road, they’re going to find the price printed on a sticker stuck to the shelf. It’s might be lower than yours, but there’s no haggling. As a small Business, you can negotiate package deals, wiggle on your price, and add services or other value-adds that make the Customer feel like they were heard and got the best value possible. Don’t turn your Business into the stereotypical Used-Car lot with the sleazy Salesman, but listen to & respond to Customers’ concerns regarding price. Remind them that your Business has staff on hand that can help them answer almost any of their questions.
Professionalism– If you have a Brick & Mortar, is your store clean, shelves stocked, signage professionally designed & printed + employees clean & professional? This is where you take a cue from larger stores. People feel more comfortable dealing with Businesses that have a professional look. If your attention to detail is lacking, find somebody who can take on that task for you. And how can you make your Customer experience easier & faster? Strive to reduce it as low as possible while having an atmosphere where they can spend as long as they choose with you or your sales staff before purchasing to answer all their concerns.

4. Create Customer Loyalty programs

A successful CL program can contribute heavily towards retaining your customers and turning them into repeat customers. In fact, a Customer who is a part of your Loyalty program is 47% more likely to make another purchase from you when compared to other customers. The main reason is that Loyalty programs have the power of making your customers feel valued, empowered, & more connected with your brand. Such a connection provides the right kind of motivation for your customers to lead them to make more purchases from your company. Here are the ways to increase customer return rate with loyalty programs.

Offer Attractive Rewards: Offer valuable rewards in your Loyalty programs, so that your Customers are driven towards opting for your Loyalty programs, then making more purchases to earn more Rewards. Such a situation becomes the perfect win-win for both you & your Customers.
Give Customers a Head Start: while starting a Loyalty program, try to give your customers a head start in winning points. This way, your customers feel, they only have to make a few more purchases to win the rewards – which motivates them to purchase more.
Provide Welcome Points for new Customers: by providing Welcome points, you are adding value to your Customers right from the start and this will help you get an increased number of repeat Customers for your business.
Make it Interesting & Creative: The more enjoyable a Loyalty program is, the more will be your Customer retention rate. Hence, try to make your Loyalty programs more fun thru gamification & creativity.

5. Offer Discounts & Incentives to repeat Customers

Who doesn’t love Discounts & Offers? Everyone does !!! Hence, you should start using Offers & Discounts immediately to retain your Customers if you haven’t done it already. When your Margins are tight, offering Discounts might not be the best option for your business. However, offering Discounts to new customers – after their first purchase – can prove to be highly profitable for your business. Delight your repeat Customers by using different ways of offering Discounts & Incentives. “Variety is the spice of life !!!

Provide On-Boarding offers: During on-boarding provide Offers like free shipping or some exclusive discount codes to your Customers – which will give them a good experience with your brand.
Offers after First purchase: You have the opportunity to turn new Customers into repeat Customers by offering them discount codes & special offers after their first purchase. This will nudge them to make more purchases from your brand.
Keep Experimenting: Every business and their Customers are different. Experiment with different offers and see what is most profitable for your business of giving you the most significant increase in Customer retention rates.

6. Collect Information

Privacy is a hot-button topic but you can collect Customer information without invading their life. It will seem awkward to collect all of their Contact information if they purchase a low-cost item, but for larger ticket items, having a record of what they purchased for warranty purposes or to allow for future support is a great reason to collect their information. Then, ask their permission to include them on your Email list or to receive notices via Text messaging. Let them know that they won’t be bombarded with daily Emails and that you’ll only contact them when there’s a coupon, sale, or other significant event. Show them that you value their time, privacy.

7. Write Personal Notes

Email & Mailers are nice, but how often do you respond to impersonal correspondence? The allure of a small Business is that it’s personal—something the big companies have a much tougher time emulating. Have an event or sale coming up? Write a personal note. If it’s an Email, put something in it that proves that it was personally written to them. (Keep the recipient’s Kid’s name in your database and ask how they’re doing in the Email, for example)

Be personal and relational. People want to do Business with Businesses that make them feel valued.

8. Go Over the Top !!!

Sound like something out of a Seminar? You’ve heard this popular phrase more times than you can count, but are you doing it? If you are truly “Going over the Top” in your treatment of Customers, they will come back for more. Over the Top isn’t necessarily convenient and you might not make much of a profit on the sale. It might require you to spend a lot of seemingly wasted time solving a Customer problem and you might have to attend a big Customer’s event – although it’s the last thing you want to do. Businesses that treat their Customers like close family thrive. Successful Business owners center everything around their Customers, because they know that when they do that – profits, repeat Business, and success are a buy–product of that mindset.

8 Wise wows & Whys.

Reasons why it’s best to attract repeat Business !!!

Eight (8) Wise Wows & Whys: > $$$, EZ to Sell, New Cost 5X more, Promote, Retention, Lifetime Value, Referrals, Gr8 Stats !!!

When your Business needs to increase revenue, where is the first place you look? If you’re like many Businesses, you focus the bulk of your time & budget on acquiring new Customers. While new Business is an important part of creating a profitable Business, it’s not the best use of your time & $$$. fm Constant Contact.com 5/21

What if you spent more time focusing on your most valuable Resource?

Your existing Customers. Concentrating on Customer retention and encouraging repeat Customers creates long-lasting, more profitable relationships. Here are five (5) reasons why you should focus your efforts on repeat Business:

1. Repeat Customers spend more $$$

300%more, according to RjMetrics. Not only are your repeat Customers purchasing more over time than new Customers, they likely trust you enough to purchase your more expensive products or services.

2. Repeat Customers are easier to sell to

You have limited time & resources. You don’t want to waste them on potential Customers who never end up buying anything any ways. Keep in mind, when you’re marketing to a prospective Customer, you only have a 13% chance (or less) of persuading them to make a purchase. However, it’s a different scenario when you market to a repeat Customer. Repeat Customers have a 60 to 70% probability of buying. Don’t waste time spinning your wheels without getting results.

3. New Customers cost you 5X more

If you’re a small Business, you need to save $$$ wherever you can. It costs 5X more to acquire a new Customer than it does to keep a current Customer. Bringing that new Customer to the spending level of your current Customers costs 16X more. It’s wiser to spend your limited money where you know it will have the most impact.

**4. Repeat Customers usually promote your Business**

Marketing can be expensive. By focusing on repeat Business, you’ll create a group of loyal Customers that will happily sing your praises and promote your Business. (Repeat Customers refer 50% more Customers than one-time buyers)

5. Businesses are built on Customer retention

Your Business shouldn’t be a revolving door of Customers. By increasing Customer retention just 5%, a company’s profitability will increase by an average of 75%. When you imagine future success, picture strengthening existing relationships rather than forging new ones. After all, 80% of future profits come from 20%of current Customers. (One of the 80/20 Rules)

6. Repeat Customers have higher Lifetime Value (LTV)

Apart from higher conversion rates, the average order value of repeat customers also tends to be higher as compared to new customers. For every purchase made, a repeat customer is going to spend more money than a new customer, either through upsells or an increased quantity of orders. Moreover, the likelihood of a repeat Customer making frequent purchases from your brand is much more than that of a new customer. Hence, promoting new products to repeat Customers takes much less effort compared to new Customers. (see Stats below)

7. more Likely to refer to new Customers

Your repeat Customers are loyal to your brand, because they have had good experiences with you. Due to this, repeat Customers are highly likely to promote your brand through word of mouth or social media. Hence your repeat Customers have the added advantage that they refer numerous new customers to your business.

8. Some mind-blowing Statistics related to repeat Customers

Here are some shocking statistics about the value of repeat customers for your business:

Repeat Customers are likely to spend 300% more on your business compared to new Customers.
Acquiring new Customers costs 5X more than keeping repeat Customers.
Repeat Customers have a 67% higher chance of purchasing your products than new Customers.
Bringing new Customers to the spending level of repeat Customers costs 16x higher.
A 5% increase in customer retention leads to a 75% increased profitability for businesses.
On average, a repeat customer is worth 10x more than they were at the time of their first purchase.
44% of companies have a greater focus on Customer acquisition while only 18% of companied focus more on Customer retention.
62% of Customers feel that the Brands they are most loyal to are not rewarding them enough. So do something about this

**Conclusion: Investing in repeat Business costs you less & makes you more.**

Why? Because your Business prospers more with less stress & effort. How can you start driving repeat Business? Email Marketing is the easiest way to reach your existing Customers and encourage them to do business with you again.

8 Steps to Attract Repeat Business & 8 Wise Wows & Whys !!!