Yes, every business does need a healthy stream of new life blood in the form of ‘new’ clients but so many businesses neglect and forget their ‘old’ loyal, existing clients. It is far easier to sell your products and/or services to someone with whom you already have a relationship. Here are some proven techniques to help you increase your revenue per client:
1. Think life-time value, not transactional value
Shift your focus from acquiring to retaining clients. 80% of your income should be coming from 20% of your clients. One quality client, who will be loyal, regularly purchase from you and recommend likeminded friends/family to your business is worth far more than 10 ‘cheap to acquire’ once-off purchasers.
2. Get to know your customers
Invest in a Customer Relation Management system (CRM). Knowledge is power and understanding why, how and when your clients buy from you is invaluable.
3. Keep in touch
Without regular communication from you it is very hard for clients to build loyalty and trust with you. Often clients leave, not because of bad service but because of indifference; feeling as though you don’t care about them.
4. Use feedback in order to feedforward
Don’t assume you know what your clients think, feel, want or need. Customer service is at the heart of sustainable businesses. Ensuring that client feedback is part of your process means that you know what your customers do/don’t like. You continually follow a cycle of monitoring, controlling and feeding back to ensure you’re doing the right thing. It also shows that you genuinely care, which goes a long way in building a loyal client base.
5. Timing is everything
This is where your CRM system comes into play. Take the time to analyse the when, how and why customers purchase from you in order to replicate the ‘crème de la crème’.
6. Make upselling part of client interaction
Train your staff to understand that ‘upselling’ is not a dirty word but is a part of client interaction and customer service. If you don’t ask, you don’t get and you may even find you get a “well I am interested but not right now” – so make a note of this in your CRM system to follow up!
7. Offer complementary products or services
Yes, there is a cost implication in providing something for ‘free’ and you need to be careful that your offer does not devalue what you do but instead acts as an enticement to secure a long-term client who goes on to spend with you time and time again.
8. Remind customers about all that you offer
Don’t assume that your clients know about all of your products/services. And don’t just tell them once. As part of your regular communications you need to remind your clients of everything that you can do for them otherwise they may go elsewhere simply because they assumed that you couldn’t provide them with what they needed.
9. Incentivise referrals
In order to replicate the ‘crème de la crème’ of your clients, consider offering some form of incentive when they recommend their friends/family/colleagues to you. Dual based incentives work well so that you reward both the existing client who referred and the new client too.
10. Think about introducing staff incentives
A lot of people of scared off by the term ‘selling’ due to the negative connotations associated with pushy tactics. Selling shouldn’t be viewed as a separate task but as an integral part of your business. Motivate your staff by offering them incentives for achieving set targets. These should be both be customer satisfaction based and revenue based. If you need any help with your marketing communications then please drop me an email zoe@bluehorizonsmarketing.co.uk or give me a call on 01242 236600.
