How To Retain Or Expand Your Customer Base
During trying times, loyal and new customers can be your lifeline.
If a significant portion of your customer base are just one-time buyers, it might be difficult to sustain consistent sales or keep your business thriving for long. Here are a few suggestions to help you keep your old customers coming back and bring in new ones.
- Know your customers.
Because your customers’ likes and tastes might’ve changed over time, you’ll need to understand what they’re all about now. You can accomplish this by finding out what they like and don’t like about your offerings. For instance, it could be as simple as adopting a new packaging for your products, or adding an alternative service. Understanding who your customers are helps you prioritise opportunities to grow your business, show your existing customers that you care and you’ll have ideas on how to refine your services or products for new customers.
2. Monitor your sales data.
By staying up-to-date with your customer’s unique behaviours every now and then, you can adjust your services or products to account for changes in your customer’s spending habits, preferences, and behaviours. Your existing customers are likely to buy from you more often, and the new ones will be more willing to buy from you.
If you use Kuda Business POS to accept payments, you can use it as a research tool. Just go to the POS dashboard on your Kuda Business app to get insights on which of your services or products are more profitable, identify your best customers, how frequently a customer returns, or even how much your customer spends and on what. Besides reviewing sales data on your POS, make it a habit to also regularly send your customers surveys to get their feedback on your products or services, or you can ask for their opinions when they come to purchase in-store.
3. Experiment with loyalty programs.
Think of loyalty programs as an opportunity to create a win-win situation for your business and your customers. If you want to keep your existing customers coming back, you could start a volume-based discount program or point-based system to incentivise them. They’ll get a discount for buying your product in larger quantities, or get rewarded with points anytime they make a purchase, and over time these points can be used to redeem a gift or one of your products. And if you’re looking to get new customers, you can use a referral program that rewards your existing customers for successfully getting those new customers to buy something from you or use your service.
4. Cross-sell when you can.
Analyse and use sales data to cross-sell complementary products and services that match your customers’ buying patterns. This will show your existing customers that you’re open to giving them more value. You’ll encourage them to spend more, and you’ll attract new customers who might be interested in your added-value products or services.
When expanding your customer base, remember that old customers are more likely to leave and new ones are less likely to stay if there is no value. So as your customer base expands, find ways to keep your existing customers and also make the new ones happy.
