Guest article: How mobility retailers can harness the power of customer loyalty
The best and most profitable businesses know about buying patterns and work hard to keep that habit going, as David Russell explains…
If it’s free I always use the same locker at the gym. When I’m working, I like to have a cup of tea at 10.30 am and 3.00 pm. When I go shopping, I always seem to end up parking in the same area of the car park, most of the time in the same space!
Does this all sound familiar? Like many of the population I have developed habits that can be difficult to change. Getting your customers to form a habit of buying from you is one of the most effective ways of building a sustainable business.
Let’s focus on your buying habits for a moment. How many businesses do you buy from frequently without considering trying someone else? It could be a coffee when you are out and about, the same supermarket week in and week out or even the car dealership you’ve been spending money with for years.
Recognise buying patterns
Now here’s an interesting question – how many customers do you have who wouldn’t ever entertain going anywhere else? I’m talking about super-loyal customers who have been with you for a year, two or five years or longer.
The answer to that question will tell you just how strong your business really is. I’m guessing that many of you won’t know the answer.
Most businesses don’t know. They take those incredibly important and profitable customers for granted – and that’s very dangerous.
Yes, you probably have plenty of customer names on your database but are you sure they are still your customers, or have they stopped buying from you and moved on to a new supplier?
Most small businesses have no idea how many customers have stopped buying from them but are still in the market for their products.
The best and most profitable businesses know about buying patterns and work hard to keep that habit going. They notice when a customer stops buying and they do something about it – a call, a reminder, an offer, a thank you. They know that if the buying habit is broken it can be very hard to get a customer to start buying again.
Obtaining customer loyalty
A sales director of a large exhibition organiser explained to me just how important it was to keep companies on the floorplan of an annual exhibition.
The company worked hard, very hard indeed, to keep their clients with them for the next event. I’ve often been in the sales office at a show a couple of hours before a new event opened when the sales team was already being sent out onto the show floor to sign up the companies for the following year.
If you’ve ever exhibited at a large event, you may be asked to re-book for the following year as soon as the show opens. The best and most profitable exhibition organisers put in a lot of effort to get the existing exhibitors to commit to the next event.
Why? Because the exhibition organisers know that if a business decides to ‘leave it next year’ it could be difficult to persuade them to book again for the year after. Once a business has been away from an exhibition for a couple of years, not going becomes a habit and that’s quite hard to turn around. Basically, you’re back to square one and all the loyalty you’ve managed to build disappears into dust.
In the same way, as soon as your customer decides to go somewhere else or just ‘leave it this time’ or ‘go from each month to every other month to see how that goes,’ you’re in trouble. You may have just lost a customer who provides easy sales and profit margins – for good!
Of course, the boot can be on the other foot. You may be making decisions for your business and buying products and services based on habit. Reviewing some of those decisions might be worthwhile if that’s the case.
The big questions are…
Would you know if one of your regular customers stopped buying from you?
How many ‘regular’ customers have you lost in the last three months?
What processes do you have to ensure that repeat customers continue to buy?
Extracted from ‘58½ ridiculously simple marketing gems I wish I’d known years ago’ by David Russell, marketing specialist and founder of THIIS Magazine. Available to buy at Amazon in Kindle edition for £5.54 or in paperback for £9.99.
