Your Customers Are Your Lifeblood

No matter what the size of your business, you need customers. A business without customers is not a business. Your first task is to attract customers, now hopefully you have either researched what your business is going to sell or this has already been done by the company whose products or services you are going to promote. You need to be selling products or services that are in demand.

You need to be prepared to fight for your customers from competitors who offer similar products and services and the best way of doing this is by providing high standards of customer services. giving the customers what they want, when they want at a price they are prepared to pay. Prospective customers often have questions, so providing a question and answer function of common questions is advisable. I have noticed a growing number of sites that provide, live online chat support and this is an excellent way of helping customers, I actually prefer this to being referred to a call centre.

Another growing trend is to ask customer to provide reviews/comments about products they have purchased. Tracking customers purchase trends is vital for the likes of supermarkets, with high turnovers of products. Small business and sole traders can also benefit from customer feedback and it is not uncommon to be asked to help spread the word to people you know and some companies go as far as providing additional benefits to both the recommender and a prospective new customer.

Customers are always looking for bargains, be it cashback, discount vouchers, two for one offers, free gifts or savings points. I am certainly a fan of Tesco one of the largest retailers in the world and it does seem to go out of its way to ensure it customers are kept happy, shopping online or offline. The home delivery service is excellent for the organised individual can save you money as you can pick your grocery shopping online, including special offers, without adding additional items not on your shopping list. There are addtional time saving and cost of travel for a busy person.

Keeping in touch with your customers via email with regular newsletter, offering insights to specific products is another proven way of maintaining your customer base but once you start you must continue, customers will usually expect to receive newsletter once a month or every other month, if you have a gap longer than this it is likely that your customers will forget you and unsubscribe from your mailings.

Today I had a great customer service experience visiting a local butcher. We were buying various cuts of meat for a party at the weekend. One item we required was pork mince which was only available by order. The butcher went on to explain that he could not use the same mincer for beef and pork due to food hygiene regulations and most people were looking for minced beef. He was prepared to take our order but we would need to return in the afternoon. He also provided us with a customer loyalty card. The advantage of using the local butcher compared to the supermarket was both advice on how best the meat could be cooked plus customised butchering ready for cooking.

Your customer list becomes a company asset but you need to take care in the storage and sharing of customer details, being careful to always comply with the data protection acts. in the UK here is a useful guide to direct marketing Taking care of and building a wide customer base will ensure the best possible return.