Keeping the Customers you Already Have

By Chris Wendel                                                                 

The process of turning a one-time customer into a repeat long-term buyer is never an easy task. In this world of competitive pricing, web based competition, and multiple buying choices; one has to be savvy to keep customers around.

It’s estimated that the average American company loses 15 to 20 percent of its customers each year, and most companies spend two times the money on acquiring new customers than on a simple program that can help keep the customers they already have. Placing even a small effort into a customer loyalty program can incrementally build a company’s sales.

Stuck with what to do next? Here are some simple steps to build customer allegiance:

1. Simple manners: Greeting a customer when they walk in the door, and thanking them when they do buy from you are fairly obvious gestures. Yet in today’s hectic world these basic elements of the customer experience are many times over looked.
2. Know your customers and call them by name. Again this is applied common sense. If your mental Rolodex can’t retain your customers’ names, write them down (along with addresses and other pertinent information), or better yet develop a customer database, and refer to it regularly. Learn to be sincere when addressing your customer by name, not canned in your delivery
3. Remind customers about product benefits. Customers may not make repeat sales because they don’t understand how the product or service they purchased works. Offering your customers classes or taking the time to explain things further, shows that you have their best interest in mind.
4. Develop customer rewards programs: Events and special event promotions for previous customers can be promoted through direct mail postcards and a well coordinated email program. Of course building a strong customer list is a must here (refer to step #2).
5. Inform Customers of all of your services: Spell out the full range of your products and services to customers on a regular basis. This can be communicated through newsletters, sales calls, and brochures.
6. Have an organized email and direct mail program: This would incorporate at least 3-4 mailings to established customers a year. Simple postcards combined with an annual newsletter or catalog keep your name in the mind of your customers, and are proven to help with customer retention. Emails sent through programs such as Constant Contact can replace the more expensive mailings as your email list develops and grows.
7. Update your website regularly: A stagnant stale web site makes it look like your business hasn’t changed much either. This doesn’t mean that you have to perform an entire redo of the site. Simply announcing store hours, your phone number, what brand of products you carry, and special services can work wonders here. A secondary blog web site can compliment your regualr web site with more timely information that facilitates conversations with loyal customers (that also bring new customers into the fold). Setting up a blog is free, easy, and the updated information moves you quickly up internet search engines

The time and money spent to increase customer loyalty is a small investment to make compared the higher costs of trying to win back a lost customer. Making it easy to shop with you is essential for preventing your clientele from going elsewhere.

For more information on this topic and the other business services of the MI-SBTDC in Northwest Michigan, call 231.922.3780.

Knowing When to Get Out

Chris Wendel

Several years ago while visiting the Gulf Coast of Mississippi, I heard many stories from business owners who were weighing the costs of rebuilding their business versus simply selling the remaining rubble and land, and skipping town. 

Extreme conditions forced these business owners to make life-changing decisions with their business exit strategies.  Though these resolutions were more or less forced, every business owner should have an exit strategy in mind from the first planning stages of a business.

Typically most people don’t ever consider how they will get out of business before going into business, but as a business counselor, this is paramount to a set of questions I like to ask.  These are also questions you may wish to ask yourself:

• How long do you plan to operate and be a vital part of the business?
• When you move to the next phase of your life, (i.e., retirement), what will happen to the business?
• When you decide to get out of the business, will you sell it to partners or family members? 
• Will you sell the business before it approaches a downward part of its business cycle, or simply sell the assets and move on?
• When will the benefits of running this business no longer fit into your overall life plan?  

If you make an early exit and die, (the extreme exit), what will happen to the business and those who are left?  How can the risks to others, (employees, bank, suppliers, investors), be minimized?

The whole concept of an exit strategy has been more than validated as I reflect upon my southern assignment.  Exit strategies were realized in Mississippi, for example, in just a few short hours, when people lost buildings, customers, equipment, paperwork, and years of hard work and dreams.

So, what’s the moral of the story?  Think about the conditions that would cause you to not want or be able to be in business anymore, and have a plan in place for making a graceful exit.

Chris Wendel is a Regional Director of the Michigan Small Business & Technology Development Center, in conjunction with the Traverse City Area Chamber of Commerce.

Shetlers’ Family Dairy and Agri-tourism

This weeks’s guest on the Vic McCarty Radio Show is Anne Shetler: President of the Kalkaska Chamber of Commerce and Shetler’s Family Dairy

To continue the animal theme, we’re focusing our discussion this week on Shetlers’ Family Dairy in Kalkaska County. The family owned business produced milk and dairy products for, cows that: “…aren’t on drugs, but they are on grass.” Operated almost entirely by family members, Shelters’ preserves the wholesome goodness of our milk with smaller production runs that are distributed to a select group of 30 stores in the Grand Traverse Region.

All of Shelters’ milk products come from the cows that they raise and graze, and are guaranteed to be free of any and all hormones and antibiotics. With the focus lately on knowing what’s in one’s food and where that food comes from, and newly added dairy products, the Shetlers have positioned themselves for future growth in the expanding agri-tourism sector of our economy..