In the modern marketplace your customers understand how their experience should unfold. A customer is more informed than ever before and hold more control than in the past, with a multitude of options open to them to just walk away if their customer service experience with your company doesn’t live up to their high standards. Learning how to love your customer could be the vital ingredient to make your company grow in the right way.

One of the problems that face the approach from businesses today is that the focus is on how to grow your customer base, rather than how to please your customer. Of course, you do always want to increase the raw numbers of new customers, but if you don’t have a strategy of good customer service in place to keep those customers happy then you lose the chance to retain those customers for the long-term. A high turnover of individual customers is a poor business strategy that just won’t work for long.

Loyal customers that stay with you for the long haul are more likely to repurchase, be willing to forgive you when there are slight errors in delivery of service, they are more likely to spread the word and tell others to buy from you and they are also willing to try new products and services when you are trialling them. You loyal customers are your bread and butter. Keep these people happy and you can build from there with confidence towards gaining brand new customers.

There are a few things you can put in place to improve your customer relations, have an impact on your profits and provide a solid base from which to grow your customer base.

Retention of Your Existing Customer Base – This is key and you should develop a strategy aimed solely at your current customers. Think about the service you are providing and if you update them on new products and services, ask them their opinions on their experiences with you and offer competitions and offers to make them feel valued. A repeat customer is always likely to stay with you if they are satisfied and believe it or not, it would take a bad experience for someone to leave you, so put some work in and it will pay off in the long run.

Analyse and Improve Your Customer Interaction – Have a think about what you perceive customer engagement to be. For some businesses the only time they interact with their customers is when there is a transaction taking place between you and the customer. Is this really enough to keep a customer happy? Customers want to feel loved, so how can you achieve this? The culture of customer engagement is important, train your staff to improve their customer service techniques and keep in touch in a variety of ways, without being too pushy.

Think of the Long-Term Value of a Repeat Customer – For many people, if they trust a certain brand they will always purchase from them. Considering that it is important to build genuine relationships with individual customers and to actually listen to their feedback. Being proactive, rather than reactive with your customer can build long-lasting ties that will help you grow your customer base.