“If you don’t lose ‘em, you don’t have the replace ‘em” is a maxim that’s served me well in business over the last few years.

It’s something that we pay quite a bit of attention to within N5 and whilst it’s never possible to retain every single customer it is feasible, in most businesses, to keep a whole lot more coming back much more often, and there is a single key to achieving this …

KEEP IN TOUCH.

You see, it’s not your customers’ job to remember to come back and do business with you. It’s your job to remind them.

It is commercially criminal the way that so many businesses in the UK operate.

Business owners are so quick to blame the government and the recession and the economy and the competition for downturns in their sales, yet the percentage of businesses, particularly small and medium sized businesses that keep in regular touch with their customers and provide those people with solid tangible reasons to come back and do business with them is absolutely tiny.

I was running a large training session a couple of weeks ago and I asked the group there how many of them had a database of their customers. About a quarter of the room raised their hands, “Not bad …” I said. “… now how many of you with a database use it to regularly communicate with your customers?” Almost all the hands in the room went down. One guy however remained, arm aloft. “I use my database very regularly” he says, so I asked him what he did “Every year I send them a Christmas card” he said, proudly.

I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Sending your customers a Christmas card is, in fact, not the smartest thing you can do (everyone sends Christmas cards so your message never gets through, you’re just part of the pack, you don’t stand out and you’re just kidding yourself if you think that it in some way strengthens your relationship with your customers, but that’s another story for another day).

It’s so easy to keep in contact with your customers and give them reasons to come back and see you – whatever business you are in.

It doesn’t have to be fancy newsletters that go out every week or month (although a regular newsletter sent in the post, and done properly, is probably the single most useful thing you can do to build a relationship with your customers). But dropping things into their inbox or through their letterbox reminding them that you are there and giving them a reason to come back and visit you with an offer of some kind can ensure that your business really bucks the trend and grows sales and revenue and profits whatever the economy is doing.

We see it month in, month out with the restaurants that use our Explosive Marketing service.

This is a completely “done-for-you” service where we maintain that contact with customers on behalf of the restaurants and it works like a dream. You see, when you’re planning to go out for a meal this weekend with some friends or perhaps just with your wife or husband or partner, where are you going to go? We all have a relatively small number of restaurants that we would default to and the truth is it only takes a little nudge from one of them to ensure that we go there this weekend as opposed to somewhere else. These restaurants are nudging their customers on a regular basis and they’re reaping the benefits at a result – because they are keeping in contact with their customers. They’re reminding them that they are there and business is booming as a result.

Funny that…

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