Customers are the lifeblood of any business, for without customers there would be no business. We constantly strive to grow our businesses, however, if you only have the resources to satisfy your current customer base, it’s better to delay any planned sales programme until you are in a position to satisfy any new customers you may acquire.
When you look at the sales funnel on the right you can see it’s much easier to plug the bottom rather than finding new customers to keep the top full.
The above paragraph is why customer retention is so important, it’s been proven that it takes five times as much time and effort to get new business as it does to satisfy existing clients.
Customers in general will fall into three categories: dissatisfied, satisfied and loyal.
Dissatisfied customers are those customers who feel that they are not being treated as fairly as other customers, they feel whether real or imagined that they are being victimised. For every complaint that is received from discontented customers, there will be umpteen who will complain to their friends or on social media sites earning nothing but negative word of mouth comments for your business.
Satisfied customers are customers who are open to a better offer from the competition; they feel that the product or service they are receiving is up to standard but no better.
Loyal customers don’t leave even for an attractive offer elsewhere. At the very minimum they will give you the opportunity to meet or beat the other offer. Maintaining loyal customers is an integral part of any business. Over time it has been proven that your loyal customers will spend more with you and they will refer you to their business acquaintances.
The goal of any business is to move the customers up along the customer chain; dissatisfied customers move to satisfied category, the satisfied customers move to the loyal customer category and they continue to look after the loyal customers as these will drive growth in the business.
