8 Simple Ways to Encourage your Customers to Keep Coming Back

Sustaining a business is a tough job. There are multiple factors that you must be careful about, with customer retention being at the top of the list.

Almost every small business works towards building a strong base of loyal customers both online or offline because this customer loyalty will result in good word-of-mouth publicity, which works wonders for businesses.

Ensuring that you’re giving your customers the best experience at every step of the way is crucial and will help your business prosper.

For any business to survive the tough competition, it is important to implement strategies that allow your users to keep coming back. Here are 8 simple ways you can encourage your customers to keep coming back.

1. Build a relationship with your users

Your customers are regular people and to build a strong relationship with them, you need to communicate with them every step of the way. For example, on social media, strike a conversation with them when they reach out to you. Solve their problem but make it a good experience for them.

Customers care about good service and if you ensure a good experience, not only will they remember you but they’ll keep coming back and recommend you to their friends and family. Now, your website may be getting hundreds and thousands of visits a day. Having a conversation with each and every customer is impossible.

However, a good and engaging website copy can do this task for you. Make your website easy to navigate and be mindful of the words you use throughout. This can help you establish your brand personality and influence your (potential) customer positively.

2. Build a strong online presence

In today's day and age, where everything is on the World Wide Web, building an online presence for your businesses has become essential. It allows you to connect with your customers and keep them updated about the new developments while new customers can look up information about your business with just one click.

All kinds of businesses today, be it a home baker or a hardware store, are building an online presence for their business. In fact, some are taking it a notch up and registering their domain names on new domain extensions such as .TECH, .STORE, .ONLINE, .SITE, .SPACE, .FUN, and more. This gives them the opportunity to stand out from the competition and build a meaningful presence for their products and services.

3. Offer incentives to your customers

We all need a little encouragement sometimes, and discount deals can be a great way to do just that. Offering special incentives such as offering an exclusive promotional offer to your existing customers can help you in keeping them engaged.

It is also a great idea to advertise future deals that customers can benefit from, making sure they think of you when they plan a purchase.

A loyalty program also works wonders in this instance where return customers can get an extra discount or collect points on their membership card and then use it in exchange for products or services.

This is similar to the loyalty program that Starbucks or Target has that allows return customers to avail extra benefits encouraging them to keep coming back for more.

4. Maintain a thorough database

Maintaining a database can help you profile your customers and offer deals that are most relevant to them.

It can also be a way to check if they’re regularly engaging with you or simply sending them greetings on festivals. All this can serve as a gentle reminder to the customer that you exist. Effective email marketing can be a great way to implement this and create recall value for the customers.

Johnson, a 48-year-old single mom, living in Texas City, trusts only one website for her plumbing and waterworks. This was referred to by a friend and the service was so good that she keeps going back to them for any plumbing work.

5. Participate in community events

Networking is an excellent tool for businesses and individuals alike. To help your business grow, you need to be social and participate in community events where your brand gets more visibility.

Once you become a regular at community events, people will begin to recognize you and your brand. After all, we all trust people we know more than the strangers that cross our paths.

For example, consider Jade; he is an online guitar teacher by profession who initially had just three students. He then joined the church band and became a regular at church events where his skill was pretty popular. Soon word spread that Jade teaches guitar on his website www.jadesguitar.online and that's when his student list also quickly escalated. Spending some time at community events did prove profitable to Jade.

6. Respond to feedback (both positive and negative)

Being responsive is important so that the customers feel like they are being heard. It doesn't matter whether the comments are good or bad; the key is to acknowledge both kinds of feedback and work on your weaknesses and customer service to create a great customer experience.

Every McDonalds across the world follows a policy of keeping their customers satisfied. If you complain about a faulty dish or bad taste, they'll immediately replace your order and make sure you are happy with their service. This makes customers feel important and works wonders for the reputation of McDonald's.

7. Focus on customer convenience

Customers are important to your business, and to make sure they keep coming back, you have to focus on providing a pleasant customer experience. Try and provide facilities that make it convenient to improve customer service.

When you’re offering great services and keeping customers happy, they might help you gain more customers through word of mouth, by telling their friends and family about your business.

For instance, home delivery service offered by restaurants, comfortable sofas and massages offered by salons, and free trial and exchange offered by boutique is all focused on customer convenience and retention.

8. Be an active competition in the market

The market is continually changing, and as a business, you need to keep pace. Try and be competitive with your pricing and services and make sure you innovate according to current trends.

For example, most supermarkets now have self-check-out options to enable contactless buying experience. In contrast, many businesses have developed their in-house apps for loyal customers to cater to the growing demand for online shopping. Even Ikea now takes orders online that allows them to compete with several eCommerce businesses.

In Conclusion

Customers today are very clear about what they want and how they want it. They appreciate good customer service even if it comes for a few extra dollars. The best way to build a brand and sustain your customers is to ensure that you give your customers a great experience.

Alisha is a Senior Content Marketing & Communication Specialist at Radix, the registry behind some of the most successful new domain extensions, including .ONLINE and .TECH. You can connect with her on LinkedIn and Twitter.