The simplest and most cost effective way to grow your business is so often overlooked; happy customers become your strongest advocates, they talk to their friends and associates and refer them to you. What do you do to delight your customers? Try some of these ideas or, better still come up with 10 more ideas of your own:
1. Meet with your customers more often – take a genuine interest in how they’re doing in their business
2. Run events – put on a few drinks and invite a relevant speaker
3. Give acknowledgement and a generous gift to your customers when they refer a new customer to you
4. Get on the phone to them just to check in on how they are going
5. Do business with your customers and encourage your team members to do the same
6. Refer work to your customers – ‘The Law of Reciprocity’ states that the more you do for someone else the more they are likely to do something for you in return
7. Go the extra mile – UPOD – ‘Under Promise and Over Deliver.’
8. Make them feel special when they come to your business – use their names, greet them warmly as opposed to hiding behind your computer because you’re too busy to talk to them and offer them a drink
9. Introduce them to your team so they feel more welcome and know who to talk to if you’re not around
10. Randomly send them something to show your appreciation for their business or that you’ve been thinking about them. Don’t just do this at Xmas. It doesn’t need to be anything big – it could be as simple as forwarding something you’ve seen or read that you thought would be of interest to them.
Remember that on average it costs at least 6 times more to sell to a new customer than it does to sell to an existing one. So, go on, what can you do to delight your customers?
You can get anything you want in life so long as you help enough other people get what they want – Zig Ziglar