How to keep customers loyal and happy

Happy repeat customers mean profit and success for your business. A customer can be kept happy and loyal in many ways.

Offer a quality product or service and be willing to stand by it if the customer is not happy with it. Make sure that you will do all that you can to make the customer happy with your products or service. Agree to do repairs if necessary and let the person exchange the item or get a full refund.

Come up with a new line of products and services to keep the customers interested and excited whenever shopping in your store. Keep them informed about the new products or when you are having an end of season sale. Let them know you appreciate their business and want to keep them on your valuable customers list.

Offer great incentives for repeat business like giving away a small gift, offering a small discount on the next purchase, offering an incentive card that will allow them accumulate incentive points redeemable for merchandise or discounts.

Provide a way for customers to leave suggestions on ways you can improve like

• giving away business card with your email address,


• install a suggestion box somewhere in the store where they can see and easily use it,


• having survey questionnaires online or in the store that's easy to read and understand.

You need to keep in contact with your regular customers any way you can. You can start by sending greeting cards, using the postal service or using emails. Send special invitation cards on their birthdays or at Christmas to invite them to take advantage of the sales that's going in your store. Also, mention that they can have an extra discount on any one item in the store when they present the invitation card to the cashier. Always search to improve the customers' needs.

Look into your database and see when a regular service is due and then send out a reminder to your regular customer. Customers like to receive reminders for service. They like to see that you care enough to give them a call or to simply receive a card from you through the mail.

Hire people who will make phone calls to all your customers to get feedback after they bought something from you or used your service recently. You want to make sure they were extremely pleased with what you offered and what they bought. You also want to find out if there is anything you can help to solve any problems they may have encountered through the process of buying or using your service. Ask them if they have suggestions for improvement. This will reinforce to the customer about the quality of your product or service and will help you see in what area you need improvement. If you can, use some of your customers' ideas in your improvements.

Go the extra mile to show your customers your appreciation and that you care. Send a little thank you note after you received their payment and go further by letting them know how you hope that they will to continue to do business with you.

Loyal and happy customers are essential to the success of your business. You want to focus on making the customers happy and to have them continue doing business with you again and again. Loyal customers mean your company earning more. Your company needs to make more of an effort to focus on retaining their customers than to try to get new ones. The loyal customers will have the biggest impact in bringing in new customers through word of mouth. Don't neglect to educate and train your employees. An unhappy employee can never help customers the way they deserve to be helped. They need to be helped appropriately and not forcefully.