Repeat business from customers is key to help to maintain and grow a business. As a business owner, it’s crucial you understand the importance of customer retention and how you can encourage it. But how can you get repeat business from customers? Alongside providing excellent customer service at all times, there are several digital techniques you can put in place that will encourage repeat business.
So how do you get repeat business from customers? We've outlined a few ways to increase retention and keep customers coming back.
If a customer purchases your goods or services online, then that’s the point where they will begin to expect exceptional customer service from your organisation. Ensure that your online engagement with this customer is consistent right from the start — include clear confirmation emails as part of any purchase process you have in place to reassure the customer you're on it, you're aware of their order and when they can expect to receive the product or service they've invested in.
You should continue to maintain their attention with follow-up emails after this, keeping them updated with the status of their order. If it’s a physical product they’ve purchased, let them know when they can expect it to be delivered. If it’s an experiential service, such as a dining or spa experience, send them reminders as the date approaches building excitement and anticipation.
This approach will showcase your exceptional customer service and the customer will view your business as reliable and trustworthy before they’ve even received their order. They may even recommend you to others, which will help to expand your regular customer base.
After your customers have received their goods or services, you can find out how they viewed the customer journey by requesting they fill out an online survey. This data will be important in informing you how to improve moving forward, so make it worth their while if they take the time to fill it in.
In this survey, ask them about how they viewed the customer journey - starting with how easy they found making the initial purchase through to the point where they received the product. Ask them for suggestions on how to improve the service you deliver in future.
Not only will the customer feel reassured that you’re making every effort to better your business (and therefore may be willing to give you another go if they had a negative experience), but all the data you receive will allow you to discover opportunities or weaknesses you may have and adapt your strategy to build on these, meaning your improved service will help to retain any future customers.
Follow-up surveys and online reviews are a great way to gain valuable insight into how your business is performing and give you an idea of how you could improve.
Ask any customers who have made a purchase from you to sign up for your mailing list. Again, having a solid list of customers you can send email campaigns to is a great way to encourage past customers to return - so find a way to make it worth their while.
Bear in mind that you can’t add someone to your mailing list without their permission, so if you’re planning on using email marketing to send out information on future offers, events or discounts, make sure they’re fully aware of this before signing up. Read our post on how to build or revive your mailing list for further information.
Start sending out campaigns with content that will encourage previous customers to make further purchases. As mentioned, offers, events and discounts are the best way to draw people back in and encourage repeat business - so work these into your campaigns.
Send regular updates to your mailing list so they feel like valued customers. The more valued they feel, the more likely they are to become your reliable regulars.
Even if your customers don’t opt to join your mailing list, there are other ways to set up offers exclusively for returning customers. You could send them a discount code with the product or service they receive that they can take away and redeem when making any future purchases online.
You could join this up with the follow-up survey you send out. This survey should only be sent to previous customers, so, when they finish filling it in, why not use a discount code to thank them?
You can never guarantee that someone will return to your services, but if you work this approach into your digital marketing strategy, you should retain more customers, seeing an uplift in repeat business.
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