4 Reasons Why Happy Customers Are Key To Small Business Success
The customer is always right, as the saying goes, and while you may question if that’s always true, it is important that your customers are always happy. The main aim of your business should always be to acquire new customers, create a great relationship with them, and ensure that they are happy at all times! If you’re only focussing on getting new customers and getting their money, this could have a significantly negative effect on your business.
Today we’re looking at why keeping your customers happy is especially important for small businesses, and what steps you can take to ensure you’re keeping a smile on your students’ faces.
1. More Likely To Return
It’s quite simple, but a customer that is happy with the service they receive from you will be more likely to return to you in the future. So not only have you secured one sale from them, but you could look forward to lots of repeat business in the future. This could be especially key if your customers are arranging training for their whole company or department, as repeat business of this kind could mean a huge amount of revenue and profit for you!
Returning customers could also be people who have visited your website in the past, or interacted with your brand on some level, and return in the future to actually complete the sale with you. Making sure you build a good customer relationship right from the start when they are still just a potential customer will set a great foundation for all future interactions they have with you.
2. Positive Word-Of-Mouth
It goes without saying that a happy customer is likely to say good things about your business and an unhappy customer is hardly going to recommend you to anyone who asks! The last thing you want is past students spreading bad word-of-mouth about your training courses, and the best way to prevent this from happening is to ensure your students are happy with their entire interaction with you.
Even if a problem does come up along the way, it’s all about how you deal with it that will really affect your student’s overall experience. If you tackle the problem head-on, discuss it through with the student, and take steps to make positive changes, then chances are your student will still come away from the encounter feeling positive about the experience.
3. Stand Out From Your Competitors
Connected to the above point, why not stand out from the crowd by using all your positive feedback from your happy customers? Having positive customer feedback on your website is a great way to show off to potential new customers that your training is fantastic.
You can pull great reviews from a reviews page on your website if you have one, or from customer feedback surveys that you have sent out in the past. You can then use these positive quotes on the homepage of your website, on specific course pages, in marketing emails, in social media posts, and in physical marketing materials – anything that will get the attention of potential customers.
4. Keep In Touch
Just because a customer has finished their training with you, doesn’t mean you need to stop all contact with them (unless they ask you to of course). You can still keep in touch with past students through your marketing efforts.
Remarketing is a great way to keep past customers in the loop with what is going on in your business and give them information on any upcoming courses or events which they may be interested in.
The customer journey should continue even if a customer is not currently training with you, so don’t forget about your past customers. Keeping past customers happy is important because they could still give you good feedback, they could recommend your services to friends and colleagues, and they could return to you for training in the future, which we’ll touch on in the next point!
Retain Customers And Save Money
Retaining a customer is much cheaper for you that attracting new customers all the time, so it makes sense to keep your past customers so happy that they’ll return to you in the future when they need further training.
Just think how much time and manpower you put into marketing activities, closing a sale, signing a student up for your classes, administration tasks, etc., when you bring on a new student! When a previous student signs up for further training with you, they will already have a record on your system, which will cut the administration tasks and time, and teamed with the fact that you won’t have to work as hard in marketing and sales to bring them on, it really makes sense to try and lock past customers in for repeat business instead of always attracting new ones.
Ensuring a customer has a stress-free and pleasant experience with you the first time around is a huge step in the right direction to making sure they return to you in the future. Customers who don’t enjoy their time with you are unlikely to come back, which could have a very negative effect on your business.
Originally published at www.getadministrate.com.
