It will have taken much time, hard work and passion to have attracted customers to your website. In fact, every online entrepreneur will feel a buzz of excitement once they secure their first sales. However, your next concern will undoubtedly be how to encourage them to return again and again. Find out how to keep customers coming back to your small business.
Exceptional Customer Service
Customers will not want to return to companies who lost their order or failed to reply to their messages. If you want to encourage loyalty, you will need to continually provide exceptional customer service. So, aim to respond to any form of contact they make within a two-hour period within business hours. You should also immediately notify customers with any issues with an order, and the business should apologise whenever it makes a mistake.
Maintain Effective Marketing Methods
Marketing your company should be a never-ending process. You must continually develop new and exciting campaigns to increase brand recognition and engagement, and to transform web visitors into paying customers. Create a strong online presence to improve brand awareness and to stay in your existing customers’ minds.
While social media marketing is important, you should not overlook the importance of effective SEO tactics from experienced professionals. After all, you will not want a past customer to turn to a competitor because they couldn’t find your site in Google, which is why you must focus your attention on developing an effective link building for SEO campaign. The increase in online visibility not only brings new customers to you, but helps to grow loyalty from your existing customers, as your brand becomes more trusted.
Stay in Contact with Your Past Customers
Regular communication will ensure your brand stays fresh in your customers’ minds, so they will return to your business whenever they need your services. How often you communicate with your customers will more than likely be determined by both the time of year and your industry.
There are multiple ways you can stay in touch, such as via email marketing, telephone communications, direct mail or in-person. Also, avoid the hard-sell, which will make your customers feel like just a number. Instead, take an interest in who they are, thank them for their business and provide them with incentives to return to your site, such as discount code.
Listen to Feedback
Customers are often more than happy to air their grievances with a product or service. It is your job as the company’s owner to listen to their feedback and take the necessary action – and you should also inform your customers when you have done so, before thanking them for their help. This will ensure a customer feels valued and that you are willing to go above and beyond to improve your services, which could help you to develop a lifelong customer, whilst improving your products or services for future customers.
It costs much less to maintain an existing customer than to acquire a new one. For this reason, you must continually take the steps to encourage brand loyalty. If you follow the above top tips, don’t be surprised if your very first customers stick with your company year after year.