Every small business must understand the importance of retaining the existing customers. Most small business owners get into aggressive customer acquisition and invest and all their marketing efforts, time and budgets to getting new customers and do not take any initiatives towards retaining the existing ones.
A repeat customer is good for any business but more so for a small business because of the following:
1. A repeat customer is as good as a new customer. Instead of going to the competitor, if the customer comes to you, it means you get a customer without any new investment.
2. Acquiring new customer is far more expensive than retaining an existing one.
Your competitor may take aggressive steps towards acquiring new customers and take away your customers too. Hence, once you have a customer, take extra steps in retaining him. On an average, it takes a small business at least 10 times more to acquire a new customer than retaining an existing one. Hence, the key to saving cost and growing a stable business is to retain the existing customers.
The following are the simple initiatives a small business can take towards retaining customers:
Be their support system: If you are a small business, you have a great opportunity to know your clients / customers personally. Give them individual attention and understand their specific needs, business requirements and feedback. If you make them feel important and valued, they will return the same gesture to you by sticking around.
Be responsive: the single most important key to retaining customers is to let them know that you hear what they have to say! Even a minor customer complaint or issue or feedback, if acknowledged immediately, helps the customer in developing the trust towards you and more importantly towards the brand.
Keep in touch: Make it a point to keep in touch with your customers / clients on a regular basis. If you don’t hear from them in a while, drop in an email asking if they are doing well. You can also send out periodical emails, newsletters, company/product updates on a regular basis to remind them of your presence.
Reward them: Reward your customers / clients for being committed to you. An annual discount, loyalty bonus, a public acknowledgement of your association with them, priority service, etc are all ways to give your customers more reasons to stay with you instead of wandering away.
Acquiring customers is important and a necessity for any business to grow but retaining the existing ones is critical for it to stabilize and have a higher return on investment.
bizporto.wordpress.com 
loved this post … specially the last point works best -rewarding customers for being one !! this works wonders
Excellent post. keep sharing
Well said – “Acquiring customers is important and a necessity for any business to grow but retaining the existing ones is critical for it to stabilize and have a higher ROI”