Shanu Singh Guliani

Generating Repeat Business from Day One

My new store in Charlotte, NC just opened and fortunately I hired sales associates who are well involved in the community. They have brought in some of their old clientele from previous jobs, their friends, and family.

The first sales they’ve made have not been the biggest sales…in fact it’s usually the third or fourth sale that could be the biggest sale they make with a customer, reason being, this kind of sale takes place after you have earned the customer’s trust. For this reason, startups must develop strategies for generating repeat business from day one.

Developing strategies for generating repeat business begins with the business concept itself and continues with everything from how you answer the phone to how you keep your name in front of your customers. Here are five tips to ensure your new business venture will have the repeat customers it needs to survive:

1. Never compete on price alone. If you do, there will be no reason for customers to return if a competitor has a better deal.
2. Attain customer information. If you don’t know who your customers are, you can’t stay in touch with them. Gather names and contact information any way you can even customers whom are just looking—these could be potential buyers. Capturing spouses’ names, birthdays, and anniversaries is a great way to contact customers and bring them back into your brick and mortar.
3. Call your customers. Sometimes just asking for repeat business does the trick. Reward your loyal customers. Whether it’s a discount during the customer’s birthday month or an invitation-only sale for preferred customers, rewarding customers for loyalty is a great business practice.
4. Invest in free stuff. Coffee mugs, USB’s, pens, and mouse pads branded with your company’s name is another tried-and-true method of reminding customers you exist. It’s hard for a customer to ignore something that’s staring him/her in the face.
5. Make customer service your top priority. Don’t be afraid to make exceptions and bend your policies from time to time in order to accommodate special requests or to pacify dissatisfied customers.

Posted by Shanu Singh Guliani on October 9, 2007 | Comments (0)