One of the most renowned marketing axioms goes that keeping an old customer costs less expensive by times than finding a new customer. Why is it so? The answer is very simple: an old customer has already bought our product and is familiar with it. That’s what counts!
Building the customer’s loyalty to the product and brand is one of the most wanted dreams of a company.
Loyalty is often represented and measured by repetitive buys made by the customer. Then we wonder how to make the customer buy more often and, if possible, pay more for the buy.
To me repetitive purchases can be of two types:
-> the customer continues to buy the same product;
-> the customer is offered more of the product s/he buys.
CONTINUATION:
Plenty of businesses are fond of the fact they found a new client, who made the first buy. Once familiar with the “outstanding and super quality product we offer” customers are thought to be trapped by the product. They are “supposed” to continue buying it.
I used services of an Internet provider with mediocre services (speed, customer support, etc.). I was ok with it as their payment conditions and place were good to me. One day I saw their advertising offering one free month when you pay for two months in a row. Why not use this opportunity to save some euros? But when I asked, I was told these prices are valid only for new comers, the old customers paying the same amounts…So, I went to a competitor who gave me the discount for passing to them and a free month.
That’s why I always think that discounts and gratitude gestures should be applied to the oldies (old customers), too. After all, they are the core, bringing in more profit. Why would one stop feeding his milking cow and try using this food to attract a new cow?
EXTENSION:
Extended offer of the same product is also a way to keep the customer in place. Remember that we all as customers are awfully lazy: we are lazy to file out new documents to switch from one supplier to another; we are lazy to buy new equipment to install new super power products, etc. Still, we are ready to give more money for the same product with improved properties.
I generally hate fast food, but I eat sometimes at KFC just because I like the taste of their chicken. I buy one of the four menus I like. After paying at the cashier I always catch myself that I’ve overpaid for the menu by taking a big French fries and a big Pepsi. Two euros and something, but it is over the usual check! Thus, I was offered additional properties to the existing product I am accustomed to.
Extension is thus another way to boost sales of the existing product and generate a higher turnover.
CONCLUSION:
To sum it up:
• Loyalty is measure by the number of repetitive buys and their frequency.
• To sell oftener pay attention to the old customers.
• To make a higher turnover sell your product more expensively by adding up new properties to it.
Tags: customer check total, KFC, loyalty, sales
