How do you lengthen your customer’s lifespan, especially if you’re in a competitive niche where they’re plenty of other who offers similar services as you do?

According to a survey conducted by SumAll, a New York based analytics firm, thriving businesses generate 25 to 40% of their total revenues through repeat business.

Repeating customers are your best asset,” says Dane Atkinson, CEO of SumAll. “Repeat customers spend at least 2.6 times more than a first time visitor.”

Every type of business, especially small businesses, today need loyal customers not just only to survive, but also thrive and grow. Small businesses can profit from the margins offered by the repeat customers.

In addition, they’ll also need a “word of mouth” marketing their loyal customers provide. So how do you lengthen your customer’s lifespan to turn your business from small to large?

5 Ways to Lengthen Your Customer's Lifespan:

1) Encourage Higher Initial Purchase

SumAll found that higher the customers spend, more likely they’ll come back to you. That means people who spend the most on their first transaction were twice more likely to return back than those who spend the least.

2) Offer Some Type of Incentives

Once a customer lands on your door, do offer some type of free incentives in addition to what you offer to encourage them to visit back again.

For example, you can offer a free book, information, or give a short tour on all the services you’re offering. Give them something additional to what they purchase, without charging hidden prices.

Survey conducted by SumAll found that customer who purchase a product once have 29% chance of making another purchase while a fifth time visitor has more than 62% chance of visiting back.

3) Set Aside Marketing Funds for Loyal Customers

As you already know, repeat customers are the backbone of every thriving business today. These are the people who’ll refer your products and services to their friends, family, and co-workers, and visit your business when no one else is around.

They’re the reason why small businesses grow from small to LARGE!

Most business owners spend all of their marketing funds on attracting new customers while giving little or no thought to their current visitors. That’s a HUGE mistake! “At least 25% of the marketing budget must be set aside for existing loyal customers,” says Atkinson.

4) Give More “Personalized Attention”

You already know that repeating customers are your best buddies as they’ve been with you through thick and thin. Why not make them feel special and give additional reasons to purchase again?

Making your customers feel special means giving them personalized attention, like giving a brief call to know whether their recent purchase of your service and product were good enough. Or inviting them exclusively on events and labeling them a VIP designation, or offering free shipping goes a long way to retain customers. The list can go on and on.

5) Listen to Client’s Feedback to Upgrade

Retaining customers is all about offering the best customer experience.

Listen to your customer’s deepest concerns, feedbacks, complaints, and feedbacks in general as it will NOT only help you learn their buying behavior, but over time, you’ll also improve the quality of services and products. This will make everything look fresh and enticing, giving them more reasons to keep coming back to your place.

The more people are satisfied with your customer care service, more likely they’ll feel at ease purchasing from you again.

5 Ways to Retain Customers - Conclusion

Repeating customers are the lifeline of any businesses. Retaining a customer is an art itself and it will only improve through experience you gain from their feedbacks and complaints.

Treat your customers, especially your loyal customers, like your family members by giving them special attention, and they’ll more likely purchase from you again. Retaining customers is also about building a lasting relationship. If you require, you may want to hire skilled marketers and sales people to lengthen your customer’s lifespan too.

We’d like to hear from you. Tell us the best ways to lengthen customer’s lifespan by commenting below. We’ll respond to you, promise.




Leave a Reply.