Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay
Have you experienced the agony of not enjoying the fruits of your labor? That includes not having enough time for projects, not enjoying life outside of your business, and worse – losing customers and repeat business.
Customers leave 70 percent of the time because they feel taken for granted – they don’t feel valued.
Concurrently, these situations make it difficult to attract more customers.
It’s much easier to keep customers happy for a stable income than to get new business.
It also makes it easier for referrals for new customers.
So what to do?
Implement 13 strategies to avoid the typical sins of businesses to avoid a crisis with valued customers.
Firstly, it’s best to look at the big picture – your approach to business planning.
Secondly, improve your day-to-day activities.
To keep and attract valued customers, here are 13 strategies:
- Have a strategic plan. There are five reasons for a strategic plan, which has six key elements.
- Using the right data, check the plan regularly to monitor progress and make adjustments.
- Make sure your stakeholders – advisers and employees – are aware of your strategic plan.
- Devote sufficient time and energy to your strategic planning – at least a couple of days every 12 months.
- Express what you envision for the scale and scope of your firm for the next three to five years.
- Anticipate what you’ll need to do to grow your business for the long term.
- Make certain your one-year planning segments contribute to your long-term goals.
- Know why you have and haven’t attained your profit and turnover targets.
- Prepare and hold well organized meetings to improve your company’s performance. Prepare an agenda and make it available to attendees in advance.
- Maintain and nurture your current relationships. Use your energy and time to fully understand the true needs of your customers, and their industries.
- Be authentic with your customers. Don’t pretend to be knowledgeable when you’re not. Your sincerity will increase trust with them.
- Focus on being passionate about delivering exemplary service.
- If you make a mistake, don’t be defensive. Flaunt your mistake with a sincere apology.
Again, failure to keep customers happy, will lead to your demise. But if you keep them happy, you’ll guarantee a stable income and a source for referrals of new business.
From the Coach’s Corner, here are relevant additional sources of information:
Why Your Customer-Loyalty Program Might Not Be Profitable — Researchers are warning businesses that their customer-loyalty programs, which are designed to increase repeat business, may be causing more harm than good.
Trending Essentials to Win Millennials’ Brand Loyalty — How do Millennial consumers view brands? What’s necessary win their brand loyalty? The answers to these questions are important because Millennials have $600 billion to spend. If you win them over now — depending on your goods, services and industry — you might also create customers for decades to come.
Energize Your Customer-Loyalty Program with 6 Steps – The quickest way for established businesses to optimize revenue is to have a stellar customer-loyalty program — there are six steps you can take for repeat sales and referrals. If you’re not a great steward of your current book of business, it’s futile to look for new customers.
How to Profit from Word-of-Mouth Advertising and Customer Service — When was the last time you explored options for improving your word-of-mouth opportunities? Here’s a hint: Customer service is the No. 1 key to good word-of-mouth advertising and repeat business. My firm’s research shows that consumers usually respond favorably to marketing after receiving five positive messages. Conversely, they will divorce your company if they have five or fewer unfavorable experiences.
11 Sales Strategies to Outsell Your Big Competitors – Big companies have obvious advantages over small businesses. Their brands are well-known. They can afford sales training, sales-support staff and customer-relationship management software. On the other hand, there are good reasons why Cyber Monday has become big.
Sales, Networking Strategies to Build Strong Relationships – Thank you letters matter, but it’s become a lost art in favor of e-mails and uttering the trite phrase, “Have a nice day.” Ugh. The irony is that thank you letters create a self-feeling of optimism — a key ingredient for climbing the corporate ladder or to succeed as an entrepreneur.
In sales, it’s not what you say; it’s how they perceive what you say.
-Jeffrey Gitomer
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