Do you remember when you started your business how you cherished each customer, how you thought them to be a blessing to yourself and to your business, how you gave time to them and took care of their every needs? Now a few years down the line and you can hardly find the time to say hello amidst your busy schedule.
You are not to be blamed.
As your store grows, so does the demand for your limited time and your customer loyalty may suffer as a result. In a small business you need to look into everything, starting from inventory all the way to how the product is displayed on the shelves. Between your invoicing, record keeping, matching the reorders and thousands of other daily activities that you are involved with you hardly realize how the day started and when it is time to go home(?).
By the time you realize that you have not given considerable amount of time to your customers a year or even two passes by. Your customers no longer have the special feeling they used to when they initially started visiting your store.
It is high time to step up your customer relationship strategy and make each and every customer feel special. Here are some easy tips that you can do to build better customer relationship that will help your business to grow further.
1. Create a customer database. You can do so in Microsoft Excel, MS Outlook, or simply in any text editor as MS Word. You will need to keep information such as
a. Customer's name and contact details including phone and email.
b. Birthday
c. Anniversaries
d. Hobbies or any specific interest
e. Date the customer first purchased from you and his running tab of all additional purchases
Use the database that you created on a regular basis. Keep it updated by entering or modifying the data regularly. You can set aside an hour each week to do this work.
2. Spend some time every Monday to write personal notes to those customers who have milestone or important dates coming up. Or you may review the list every two weeks or once a month and write notes in advance of the next period.
3. Develop a reminder system to send thank you notes on a regular basis to your customers at least 4 times a year. A helpful tip would be to always carry your retail business stationary stamped. Whenever you finish a networking event you can quickly write in the names and address from the persons business card on an envelope, write a brief note and drop it in a post box on the way.
4. Use your reminder system to remind you to regularly send out your newsletter or e-zine. Your e-zine must be informative and meet the need of your customers.
5. Develop a customer service guide and train your staffs and monitor to see them implement it. Your guide should include how to treat customers from when they inquire about a product the first time they come to your store all the way to follow-up.
6. Evaluate your customers spending in your retail business at least once each quarter. This will allow you to judge which customer has increased their spending in your retail business, who has lessened it, how many new customers your retail business attracted etc. All this will give you an idea on how to better treat your customers, who you should put more attention towards before they finally feel miserable about your service and takes their business elsewhere.
Finally, remember that it is your customer's satisfaction that can eventually make your retail business successful.
For more information on positive customer experiences see Customer Care For Business Owners.