10 Super Tips to Keep Customers Coming Back

Often, businesses are so focused on acquiring new customers, almost forgetting that retaining customers is just as crucial and necessary to help a business thrive.

You see, return customers can be the lifeblood of your business, and with the power of social media, these repeat customers can be your free online ambassadors for your brand. Your loyal customers can do more than just paying for the products and services that you offer. Most important, they can tell others about your business.

So, never make the mistake of taking a repeat transaction for granted. Make sure that you take the best possible care of your existing customers even though they are already in your database – this way, you are protecting the investment you made when you were trying to earn their trust and business the first time.

Here are the 10 Super Tips to Keep Customers Coming Back

1. Maintain a Great Reputation
2. Place the Right People on the Frontlines
3. Show Your Customers Things Worth Coming Back
4. Ensure that Your Website Loads Fast & Easy to Navigate
5. Stay in Touch with Your Customers
6. Add the Element of Surprise
7. Keep Your Customers Involved When You Do Something Good
8. Make Sure Your Customers Feel that It’s Easy to Reach You
9. Listen & Ask for Feedback
10. Make Sure Your Products & Services are Evolving

Remember that the best customer you can ever get is the one that keeps coming back to purchase your products and services. It’s pretty cliche, but you do know that businesses can’t grow without retaining customers, right?

This is why it is crucial to build and maintain a loyal customer base – retaining an existing customer is way cheaper than acquiring a new one.

Now, let’s elaborate on each tip on how to keep customers coming back.

1. Maintain a Great Reputation

One survey suggests that businesses should up their game to improve how they are perceived – the survey concluded that 93% of customers agree that the reputation of a company hugely impacts their behavior towards such business.

I bet that you would like to do business from companies that uphold a good reputation than those that are barely making a name for themselves, right?

Therefore, your business has to take the necessary steps to maintain a good reputation, if not great – you can start by taking outstanding care of your existing customers. Keep in mind that word of mouth can spread quicker than wildfire.

2. Place the Right People on the Frontlines

The front liners of your business, also known as the people with direct contacts to your customers can be the core of acquiring new customers and retaining existing customers for your business. So, you better make sure that these people are properly vetted and placed in the right positions.

You see, it doesn’t really matter if you have the most excellent product in the whole world, if the people your customers have direct contact with are lethargic and, worse, difficult to deal with, you can’t retain customers – let alone acquire new ones.

So, do the best you can only to hire the most qualified people. Cultivate the work-culture of friendliness, efficiency, and personalized service to keep customers coming back again and again.

3. Show Your Customers Things Worth Coming Back

Planning your every sale smartly is one of the sure ways to keep customers coming back. For instance, offering special discounts on their next purchase can entice people to go back for another and even more. Plus, sending your first-time customers relevant emails can increase your chances of keeping them patronizing your products and services.

For example, if a customer bought a dog bed, you can send her emails about the newest dog kennels, and healthy dog treats with discounts. It is more likely that some who bought a dog bed will buy more dog supplies, especially if you inform them about the fantastic products and deals that you have.

4. Ensure that Your Website Loads Fast & Easy to Navigate

Almost all businesses have their respective websites – it is becoming a necessity for companies nowadays, no matter how small or big your business is. You see, everyone is going digital. So, creating a website for your business is just a way for you to keep up in this fast-paced, digitally-driven world.

Anyway, this tip is mostly helpful for those hustling in the e-commerce industry – your online store must be loading fast, and your customers must find it easy to navigate.

One study revealed that 47% of customers are expecting websites to load in about 2 seconds, while 40% will immediately leave your online store if it takes more than 3 seconds to load.

On the other hand, making your website easy to navigate (limiting 2 to 4 clicks from the home page to the product page) will not only help increase your positive user experience but also help the search engine “crawlers” to index your web pages better. As a result, your website will rank higher in the Search Engines Results Pages (SERPs).

Once you rank higher on the first page of the search engines, especially Google, more and more people will see your web pages and click on it because according to another study, 71.33% of clicks go to the top 10 search results, and the top-ranking position gets 33% of the clicks from search users. Also, it’s important to track your visibility and CTR via online available CTR tools.

A lot of the efforts in making your website rank higher, load faster, and user-friendly involves Search Engine Optimization (SEO). So, make sure to consult the e-commerce SEO experts so you can get ahead of the game.

5. Stay in Touch with Your Customers

After a sale, make sure to stay in touch with your customers. First, you can show your appreciation – send them a simple, heartfelt thank you through a thank-you note or via email. Don’t try to sell them an upgrade or something else. Just express your gratitude. Also, you can encourage them to invite their friends and family members to your business so they can earn referral rewards.

Then, find ways to build a relationship with your customers – invite them to follow you on social media, and make sure your social media pages are active, publish posts regularly. Next, add them to your email newsletter for regular communication about the good deals and opportunities your business can offer to your customers.

Now, remember that you are only keeping in touch, and you don’t want to bombard them with promotional offers all the time. Strive to communicate with enough purpose and meaning that your customers can be compelled to respond.

6. Add the Element of Surprise

Do you remember how a business or a brand did something that exceeded your expectations to the point of surprise? The feeling of excitement and delight must be a sudden bliss! For sure, you told someone about how the brand did something extraordinary for you.

You see, in business, surprising your customers does not really have to be extraordinary. To keep your customers coming back can be as simple as sending them a happy-birthday note on their birthday or their dog’s birthday if you are in the pet supplies niche. Or you can send them a congratulatory note for another milestone, or just remember their name and say it to them once they come back to your physical shop.

Also, don’t forget to reward them with loyalty discounts once they keep coming back to purchase your products or use your services.

7. Keep Your Customers Involved When You Do Something Good

One of the best ways to keep customers coming back is by involving them as you do good things for the community, such as a charity.

You can commit to donating a percentage of every purchase to a non-profit organization that is mostly related to your business or just choose any activity that your customers can participate in by doing something good for the community. This is probably the best thing to make sure that your customers will always feel good about doing business with you.

8. Make Sure Your Customers Feel that It’s Easy to Reach You

How much do you dislike being sent to a lengthy chain of menu options before you can get help from a person on the line? Plus, it feels terrible to get a stale answer if you only ask a seemingly simple question about the product that you recently purchased, right?

So, don’t let your customers feel this way – they should perceive your business or brand as something that they can truly rely on when questions or confusions arise. Make it a habit to return calls, reply to voicemail, emails, and social media messages and comments promptly.

9. Listen & Ask for Feedback

Stating the obvious, this tip requires two methods from you: ask and listen. These methods combined have been effective in learning how to keep customers coming back again and again.

So, make sure that you are always encouraging your customers to provide feedback to your products and services as well as pay close attention to the ideas that your customers share, which will help your business grow.

Make it a habit to send surveys asking your customers about their opinions when it comes to the products and services they received from your business – use this information by sharing the positive feedback from existing customers, to other people, as proof that you are doing a great job, and use the not-so-positive feedback to improve your game.

10. Make Sure Your Products & Services are Evolving

Do you remember Nokia? That brand is a massive reminder that even the largest companies cannot retain their customers if they fail to evolve with time.

You see, people are easily bored. We are continually seeking new things to keep us interested, especially when it comes to the products and services that we consume.

As a business owner, one of your greatest challenges to keep customers coming back is to keep up with the latest technological advancements and to adapt quickly.

For instance, your business should have a mobile-friendly website because this mobile phone era is prompting customers to shop via their mobile phones than through their laptop and desktop computers.

Final Thoughts

The secret to making sure that you keep customers coming back lies in making them happy. Take time to understand what your customers need and want – give them just that.

Now, start practicing these ways to keep customers coming back so you can grow your business effectively. If you need help from digital marketing experts, let us know.