Tom Feltenstein

One of the funniest movies I’ve seen is My Big Fat Greek Wedding. One scene in particular stands out. When the daughter, Toula, tells her father she wants to go to college, he looks at her and cries, “Why you want to leave me?” Today many business owners find themselves spouting the same words to their customers. Customer loyalty is a major concern because without repeat business, you will never grow. The most precious asset a business has is its current customer base and it takes a great deal of time and energy to cultivate those relationships so when they leave, it hurts. On average, it costs five times as much to acquire a new customer than to retain an existing customer. It is important to have in place a solid customer retention strategy, but far too often these strategies aren’t proactive enough to prevent the loss of customers.

In order to take action you must first be able to see the early warning signs. Take a look at your current customers, are they acting differently? Has the regular customer who eats lunch at your restaurant, three times a week only been in once or twice this month?  Are there people who used to come in your store or shop very regularly that you haven’t seen in months? If so you need some answers and quickly.  Setting up ongoing customer feedback systems and “listening posts” throughout your organization will enable you to spot unfavorable trends so that you can take action to reverse such patterns before it is too late.

When one of these long lost customers reappears, offer them a discount coupon or free gift and thank them for being your customer. Sometimes that’s all it takes to draw them back in. You might also tell them that you are evaluating different areas of your business and ask if they can offer some suggestions on things that might be changed or improved. Often this is the only opening they need to let you know the real reason they haven’t been around much. Once you know the real problems you can address them. How do you retain your long time customers?