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Last Updated on March 6, 2018 by Work In My Pajamas
It’s important for any business to implement a proactive way to gain and hold onto loyal customers, but is absolutely critical for a home business. Without a brick-and-mortar storefront to catch the eyes of passing motorists or pedestrians, you likely rely on word-of-mouth to make sales. Guess what it takes to earn that kind of reference? A satisfied customer who thinks so much of your product or service that he/she will talk about it to family and friends. How do you gain that kind of loyalty? Here are some ideas.
Don’t Forget Their Birthday
Love Facebook or hate it, there’s one thing you have to give it credit for: it never forgets the day you were born. Try putting this idea into practice in your home business by collecting information from each new customer. One way to go about this without seeming creepy is to encourage people to sign up for an email newsletter and have that as part of the information you ask for. Make it a point to reach out to your best customers with a special coupon or birthday card.
Communicate
One of your top priorities should be to set up an easy way to keep in touch with the people who support your lifestyle; namely, customers. An email newsletter is an easy solution, but a monthly flier, or periodic reminder card serves the same purpose. The point is to not let them forget about you. While your home business may be your whole world, to everyone else it’s just a service or product they use sometimes. That’s just the cold, cruel fact of running a business, and it’s why you need to always be scheming how to get the loyal ones to buy more.
Customer Service
This should be obvious, but probably the best way to keep a customer coming back for more is to provide excellent customer service. Pay particular attention to concerns and complaints and do whatever it takes to fix the problem. This is your big chance to improve your business! Too many business owners get defensive when they receive upsetting customer feedback, but this is the wrong attitude. You should be thankful someone cared enough to tell you something is amiss. Most unsatisfied customers just disappear and you never see them again, all the while they’re telling everyone who crosses their path to steer clear of your business.
Incentivize!
There are many ways to approach this strategy. The bottom line is that you make it extra beneficial to buy from you by offering a two-for-one sale, frequent buyer points, rebates, free service with every purchase. People love to think they are getting a better deal than expected. There are too many ways to take advantage of this to recount them all here. Get creative. It’s all about psychology. Make them feel like they’re getting a chance to peer behind the secret curtain.
Follow Through
Closely related to customer service, always do what you say you’re going to do and when you say you’re going to do it. This should be a given but, sadly, it is a rare commodity in the business world. Swear a solemn oath to yourself that a promise from you will always mean something. You’d be surprised how much appreciation this inculcates in a customer.
The bottom line when it comes to creating customer loyalty with your home business is to treat people the way you would want to be treated. Simple actions executed with consistency can create the kind of goodwill towards your business that you can’t buy.
