Did you know you’ll spend five times more money attracting a new customer than you would satisfying an existing one? It’s not rocket science to figure out customer retention is far more cost-effective than customer acquisition. It only makes sense, or should I say cents to focus on creating more sales with current customers, rather than keep trying to continually search for new customers.
Increasing sales with your current customers is all about creating relationships. Creating good customer relationships is the most important duty that we have as business owners and this is something that does not cost a lot of money. Many times, it is the little unexpected things that we do that mean the most and keeps a customer coming back to our business over and over!
Here are some simple ways of creating more sales with current customers.
- Offer Exceptional Customer Service
- Offer More Low Cost-High Profit Services To Your Existing Customers
- Build A Relationship With Existing And Former Customers
- Offer More Than One Price Level Of Products
- Create A Good Web Presence with Social Media
Offer Exceptional Customer Service
Offering exceptional customer service to all of your embroidery customers is extremely important in today's competitive market place! Offering better service, or a bit more service than your competitor can make all the difference in the world.
Here are 7 Tips that if followed by your entire organization, will change your business and give it a whole new life!
- Start Out Each Day With A Positive Attitude!
- Always Wear A Smile!
- Have A Clean And Well Organized Environment!
- You Must Be Willing To Work With Your Customer-Give Them A Reason Why They Need To Come Back!
- Always Return Phone Calls And Always Respond To Emails!
- Take Accurate Notes
- Never Show Anger With A Customer!
Offering Exceptional Customer Service is not hard! If you give all of your customers more than they expect and you will be greatly rewarded.
Offer More Low Cost-High Profit Services To Your Existing Customers
Acquiring new customers can be very costly. It costs more money to acquire a new customer than to offer more services to your existing customers. Along with your embroidery, you can offer your customers many other complimentary services. Many of these services can create a low cost/high-profit income center for you. Here are 5 low cost/high-profit services that you can offer to your customers almost immediately.
- Bagging or Packaging Garments
- Sewing Services
- Banners
- Heat Press Transfers
- Promotional Products
When you can create a one-stop shop for your customers with many products and services, they are inclined to be more loyal and think of you first with all of their promotional and gift giving needs!
Build A Relationship With Existing And Former Customers
The best way to start building good customer relationships is to connect with each one of your current and lost customers. Start out by making 3 lists.
- Current High-Volume Customers
- Current Lower Volume But, Repeat Customers
- Former or Lost Customers
Create some scripts that will make it easier for you to talk to people. I have found that by having the scripts in front of me, it just made it easier as you are talking to them and you do not forget anything. You can also print out a script for each customer and fill in the blank as you are talking to them. Keeping notes makes it a lot easier to recall what they said for futures reference.
After you finish talking to each customer, fill out a thank you note, thanking them for taking the time to talk to you and insert the business cards. Make sure that you tell them to sign the back of the business cards before they hand them out. This handwritten Thank You note will go a long way in helping to build your new customer relationship with that customer and it will be something that they will not forget!
Getting your customers opinions and feedback is extremely valuable to your business and makes it a lot easier to plan your strategies as to how to work with them and provide them with the type of services and products that they will be anxious to purchase from you. They really do appreciate you asking them what they need. This can be the beginning of a long working relationship with each one of your customers.
Offer More Than One Price Level Of Products
Another way to increase customer sales dramatically with your existing customers is to offer them an alternative. Many times they do not need to have the best quality shirt for their promotion. Maybe they will be just as happy with a lower priced shirt.
I found that by giving my customers three choices in the quality of products I could increase my sales and create a happy customer at the same time.
I would not compromise on the quality of my embroidery, but maybe they would settle for a Stock embroidery font rather than the digitized lettering in a logo. This could make a significant difference in the price of their one time set up. It would not change the running time of the design but between the price of a lower quality shirt or cap and the lower price of the initial set up, you could save the customer many dollars on the total order.
I always gave my customer three quality choices.
- A-Lesser Quality – Low-level price
- B-Average Quality- Mid-level price
- C- High Quality – High-level price
I followed this formula for all of my sales. I always asked the customer what type of budget we were working with before I ever showed him or her any garments. I had them show me the logo and then I would go over what could be done and what I could do for him to meet his budget. At that point, I would show the customer the products in the price level that would fit within the given budget. You gain their confidence immediately when you show them that you are willing to work with them to meet their particular budget. This method will work 99% of the time to increase your sales.
If a customer came in with a certain product in mind, that meant that he had been shopping elsewhere and was looking for a lower price. I was always up front with them and told them that if they were here shopping for a lower price that I probably would not be able to help them, but I would show him what I had and go through the exact same process. Sometimes what I had was better quality than that was already offered. Most of the time, they would go with my suggestions and work with us instead of continuing to shop around.
Create A Web Presence with Social Media
Creating a web presence is a major part of any embroidery business. This is just as important to a local embroiderer as it is to one that is trying to reach the market globally. Before you can begin to reach a worldwide market, you must first reach out to your local market and the best and most cost-effective way to do this is through your own web presence.
Everyone in business needs to create a web presence. The best way to accomplish this is to start with Social Media. There are several Social Media platforms that work great for your particular market, but Facebook is the first one to get started with. This will help to get you out in front of your audience and let people know what you have to offer.
These are the most popular, but as I said, start with Facebook. If your audience is primarily professional people such as doctors, lawyers, business owners, then you will want to be on LinkedIn. In today’s world, every business needs a Facebook Page. This is the first place that people go to start searching for you.
Focusing on creating more sales with current customers is far more productive than constantly marketing to new prospects. Yes, you need to always be marketing for new prospects, but that should not be your focus.
Many times, we have a gold mine right in front of us and don't even realize it. Our customers are our gold mine and without them, we do not exist!