Prioritising Old Customers: A Must For Business Survival

Being an outstanding entrepreneur is a herculean task. Generating consistent income from an existing business is far from child’s play. While attracting customers at first glance may seem easy, retaining them is where many business owners struggle ,and often fail.

For a business to survive, there must be a symbiotic relationship between the brand and its customers; the absence of this relationship can threaten the company’s very existence.

Therefore, customer complaints must be addressed promptly and with care. Today’s customers are in a hurry, and if their concerns are not resolved quickly, they will move on to competing brands , and chances are you may never win them back. This is why businesses must be deliberate about not losing their existing customers.

To this end, Customer Loyalty is paramount. It is important to understand that customer loyalty is what makes both new and old brands remain relevant in the market place. Working with existing customers is easier. And loyal customers will help in marketing your brand, most importantly for emerging market business owners by way of referral or online reviews.

Speaking on how brands can know when their customers are or will be unhappy, disengaged or otherwise dissatisfied, a customer relations expert, Caroline Entonu said: “Such brand must notice that its newsletter and marketing email open rates must have dropped significantly. The growth in the brand’s number of social media followers has slowed to a crawl. The click-rate for their digital ads has dropped off. All of these are signs that customers are disengaging from your brand.”

Therefore, retaining your existing customers is far cheaper than attracting new ones. While proffering solutions to this challenge, she pointed out that “brand handlers should ask their customers what’s going on. They should be gathering customer feedback at every stage of the customer journey  from marketing to post-sales support , and if they aren’t doing so already, they should start now. Survey questions should help determine where customers currently stand. For instance, have they stopped using a particular social media platform? Is their business growing so fast that they no longer have time to open marketing emails?”

According to her, “it’s a common (and smart) practice to offer new customers some kind of incentive to buy from your company. But go too far with this and you risk annoying your existing customers – and existing customers are by far the most valuable to your bottom line. Acquiring new customers costs five times more than satisfying and retaining current customers.”

She further stressed that, “you might not think the inner workings of your company or organisayion have much of an impact on your company’s success because customers buy from you as a result of the likeness  they have for your products or services.

For her, “selling to existing customers is a smart business, but do so thoughtfully. Blindly throwing your products and services at them won’t get you very far. Survey your customers regularly and frequently to get a real-time understanding of their needs so you can make targeted offers to them. Gathering customer feedback and incorporating the results into your decision-making will help promote satisfaction, engagement and loyalty over time.”

While charging entrepreneurs to engage their customer service team to make sure customers’ needs are taken care of promptly, efficiently and with a positive attitude, she urged them to gather employees feedback as well to find out where there may be gaps in your processes

On his part, marketing strategist, Paul Amodu proffered that,  “find out what drives your customers. If you are touting low prices, but your customers are primarily concerned with service, you’re not meeting your customers where they live. What worked yesterday might not work today because of customers’ lives, and therefore needs, change over time.”