Try To Get Regular Customers In Your Business
Hughism: Everybody wants to be a regular somewhere.
Community is disappearing. 60 years ago, most people shopped at the neighborhood market, went to the neighborhood bars and they worshiped in the neighborhood. Everyone had all these places where they were a regular. Not any more.
As the Cheers song says, sometimes you want to go where everyone knows your name. People want to go where they are recognized, appreciated and listened to. Everybody wants to have their bar, their coffee shop, their restaurant.
If there was a restaurant that served great food and knew you by name when you walked in the door, would you not go there more often than to a place that just served great food? Of course you would.
Which would restaurant you be more likely to recommend? Which one would you take out of town visitors to?
There are many ways to cultivate regulars, but here are a few.
- Strive to remember and use their names. Nothing works better than this.
- Build a simple database of customer’s birthdays and significant event dates (wedding anniversary, etc) and send them offers related to those dates.
- Offer a coupon good only on the third purchase.
- Build multiple visits into your service.
- Build a club (such as a frequent shopper club) with actual benefits, such as coupons, special events for club members, etc.) This is a great way to build a database.
Any of you have any ideas for making your customers regulars? Let me know in the comments.
Totally agree with the first statement if we greet on their name in the beginning of conversation. eg. An email starting with Dear Sir/Customer ….. would probably end up in ‘trash’, whereby, greet on name sounds more familiar to me. In short, turn ‘customer’ into ‘friend’ will help a lot.
Everytime a bride calls me, I always introduce myself and repeat back their name. It’s all about caring about your customers. That will really bring good word of mouth.
It’s good business to use people’s names when they come into your business. However, your suggestions seem like artificial efforts to encourage “regularism.”
I frequent a small wine bar in Waco and they have no program or technique to drive repeat business. Yet I know that every time I walk in that place, I will see several people I know.
Their “secret” is that it’s just a nice place to hang out and talk with other people who like to have a glass of wine.
So I would add to your list, making sure you have an atomosphere that people want to return to multiple times.
@ Jay-
Thanks for stopping by!
While I absolutely agree with you, I also understand that if I leave my part-time clerk to watch the store for an afternoon, she is NOT going to strive as hard as I do to provide that customer experience. No reflection on her, but no one cares about your customers as much as you do.
That is why I like systems such as mailing lists, buyers clubs and purchase dependent coupons; Not to replace great customer service, but to provide a minimally acceptable baseline for when things do not work as well as they are supposed to.
I intend to write more on systems in the near future. Thanks again!