Just a few ways to keep customers happy

With any business it is crucial that you know your customers, this article is not suggesting that you know when their cats birthday is, however it’s important to learn a few facts. On average it costs five times more money to acquire a new customer than it does to retain an existing one. In modern day society brand loyalty is something which does not just come naturally, you have to work for it. The aim of this article is to introduce you to things which may assist you in gaining customer loyalty for your business and as a result save on cost and increase turnover.

Knowledge is power so the most important thing is to listen to the customers about what they like or are not particularly fond of with your business. As much as business owners like to think to themselves “what does he/she know about business? I’m not listening to them” the fact of the matter is you don’t pay your wages, they do! So remember they are your boss.

Finding out what customers think can be a very simple process thanks to modern day social media platforms. If you have a page on a social media platform, set up a review section on that page. People will be more than happy to state their opinion, look at these opinions for any patterns that emerge, for example; if 7/10 reviews mention that your shop does not have enough light, this is a clear indication you need more lights in there. Quite often in the reviews there also lays an opportunity to show you care about customers, for example; If one person wrote a review stating they purchased a product that was faulty, you need to immediately respond to that review with an apology and an offer to replace the product (maybe include a free gift). By taking the time to respond to these reviews you are showing you have a proactive approach to business.

In business one key phrase if implemented is guaranteed to keep customers happy;

"Under promise, over deliver"

The idea behind this is simple, the customer always is impressed and expectations are exceeded when this approach is applied correctly. A good example of this is delivery times; If a product is ordered and you know the product will be ready on Wednesday, tell the customer it will be ready by Friday, this way when you call the customer on Wednesday to say their product is ready the thought that will go through their head is “wow that was quick I was expecting it to take longer”. This approach always makes the customer believe they are getting that little bit extra.

With a lot of people senses play a key role in their spending and shopping habits, this applies online just as much as it does in physical locations.

• Online- When people browse a website all text must be easy to read and to understand, avoid using fancy cursive fonts for descriptions because this make the description hard to read, if a customer cannot read the description they are not going to buy the product it really is that simple. We all love google ads as a source of revenue for our site but always think about the placement of these ads and their prominence on your site, if people visit a website and the first thing they see is a load of google ads the chances are they will hit the back button rather swiftly. Make it easy for the customer to contact the company via the site or at least have a phone number in clear view, the reason for this is because if a customer has a question about a product and they cannot contact you to get the answer, they will not buy that product. Colours play a key role in any site and the colour scheme depends on the types of people that are going to visit your site, when designing the site if you cannot look at a page for more than 10 seconds without your eyes hurting, neither can the customer. Another key rule is that the customer needs to be able to get to whatever they want to see or buy on the site within 3 or less clicks, we all know there’s nothing worse than having to click after click in order to find a product.

• Physical- Most of this really boils down to common sense, if your premises is offensive to the senses (sight, smell, sound, touch) people are going to leave and not return. Things within the premises need to be easy to find otherwise people will purly give up looking, this can be achieved by having order to the place, for example; having different sections for different types of products. This article mentioned being offensive to the senses, what you also have to remember is that if you’re using an air freshener that it is not too overpowering because this makes for an unpleasant experience. Ambient music is one thing (make sure the genres and songs suit the establishment) but don’t have the music so loud people cannot think.