When you lay your first brick in the market, your primary focus is the acquisition of customers. The gritty details of staying afloat pass you by as you struggle to find that oasis where you can take the time to think about a more refined strategy. But once you’ve got a few customers that come regularly, retaining them should be the priority. After mastering the art of wooing your customers, you need to get them to commit to you.
If you focus on each individual, you’ll end up perceiving retention as this formula full of fine details where even the tiniest misstep can completely ruin your vibe. The truth is that customer retention—at least in the initial stages of growth—involves painting with the broadest strokes possible. Get too caught up in the details, and you’ll spend too much time on minutiae to run your business efficiently.
Repeat customers are the lifeblood of small businesses, with about a third of them reporting that 71-90% of their customers visit more than once per year and 70% of their profits come from their loyal customer base. Once you’ve gathered steam, you have to know how to keep it without blowing it all out. Here are a couple of guidelines that will create an environment that’s conducive to that kind of momentum:
Let’s suppose you’re running a hardware shop and you don’t know how a rotary-percussion drill works. That would leave a horrible impression on customers even if they themselves don’t know this information. The moment someone walks up to you, they come with the expectation that you’re the authority on everything you’re offering.
Make sure that any employees you hire have a passion for what it is you offer. They should be willing to walk up to customers and assist them even when such assistance wasn’t requested. Interacting with people who represent a business makes it feel more “alive”. Even if you’re selling hammers, your customers want to feel like they also bought a service. They want to value the time that they spent with you.
Surely your idea of running a business 10 years ago didn’t involve spending time on the laptop or tablet typing up tweets, did it? Oh, how times have changed! Almost half the world’s population is connected to the internet, which gives you a potential reach that stretches far beyond your local area.
Keep in mind that buying ads on social media has its uses, but it only takes you so far. People on the web pay more attention when you speak with them directly and give them a line with which they can reach you anytime. Facebook is great for this since it allows people with accounts to send your business page a message that you can reply to. Twitter on the other hand is great for inserting your brand into conversations. Get active on the web and see where it takes you. People who like your attitude will feel as if they “fit in” with your business culture. When others see that you are responsive to messages, they’re more likely to send you one, too. It’s up to you if you want to take advantage of the potential snowball effect.
The modern-day small business runs on coffee and technology. The days of the “mom and pop” shop that closed at odd hours of the day to do its inventory and get its papers in order were left behind back in 2011.
Today, we are overwhelmed with the sheer amount of applications we need to keep everything running smoothly. Having most day-to-day functions handy in your point of sale system would not only ease this burden, but also keep your customers’ data safe. Modern POS systems offer you the possibility of introducing reward systems like loyalty cards and give you access to a variety of payment systems that anticipate any needs a customer might have.
Modernizing your infrastructure no longer requires the large investment it did back in the early 2010s and most applications now mold themselves around your business model. You now have a plethora of options that can give customers more incentive to return while at the same time improving their overall experience during visits. This two-pronged strategy provides you with the synergy you need to keep people coming to your door.
Loyal customers often have a tendency to spend more. The 80-20 rule comes to mind, which states that 80 percent of your revenue will come from 20 percent of your customers. They’ve stuck with you and have given you the largest chunk of your revenue. Perhaps it’s time to think about how you can reward that.
By providing a reward, you’re giving your customers a clear signal that you appreciate their patronage. That may provide just the incentive they need to stick with you through the long run. Perhaps you can give them a discount on their next purchase or provide them with a higher-tiered loyalty program with which they can save more as they make larger purchases. Whatever you do has to be sufficiently memorable enough for you to have a reasonable expectation that the customer will come more often.
Customer retention goes hand-in-hand with quality of experience. If your customers walk out with warm, fuzzy feelings, they’re more likely to put your business in their “mental speed-dial”. This makes them more likely to think about your brand the next time they need something you have to offer. Rewarding loyalty will solidify the relationship you have with your customers, establishing a bond that gets more difficult to break as time passes. Building upon that increases your customer retention and makes life easier for everyone!
The post How to Become a Customer Retention Guru appeared first on SmallBizTechnology.
Victims of identity theft don’t always need to file a police report, explains the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) in an alert. In an effort to help simplify the recovery process for identity theft victims, the FTC has created a government portal at IdentityTheft.gov. Victims just need to register with this page and answer some questions. […]… Read More
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Early adopters of interconnected digital technologies in the industrial sector are realizing the benefits of improvements in operational efficiencies, productivity, safety, cost savings, profitability, and customer engagement and satisfaction. These technologies include those related to the IIoT movement such as AI, machine learning, big data, predictive analytics, machine-to-machine communication, and blockchain. Industries in the manufacturing, energy, utilities, automotive, and aviation sectors, to name a few, are capitalizing on investments in these revolutionary technologies.
An upcoming issue of Cutter Business Technology Journal with Guest Editors Patrikakis Charalampos and Jose Barbosa will examine emerging trends and strategies in digital transformation in the industrial sector. How are IIoT, predictive analytics, AI, big data, blockchain, and other technologies being harnessed to gain a competitive edge and forever change the way industries do business? What business strategies are being applied to effectively implement these technologies?
CBTJ also welcomes new examples or breaking case studies of firms that have benefited from implementing intelligent, connected solutions.
Possible discussion points include those stated above and below (but are not limited to):
* What new market opportunities and competitive advantages will firms realize when enabled by digital technologies?
* What are the biggest challenges for firms implementing digital technologies?
* What kinds of challenges and resistance are firms encountering in getting their ecosystem of partners, clients, etc. onboard with the changes successful digital transformation demands, and how are they overcoming these?
* What type of organizational culture and skills are necessary to encourage innovation and make a digital industrial transformation successful?
* What qualities should an industrial leader/executive possess to foster and drive a digital transformation?
* What are some of the basic fundamental steps an organization should take to start transitioning to a connected facility?
* What new cybersecurity risks will be introduced with the increase in connected digital systems?
* How can blockchain technologies counteract these security risks and provide for secure business transactions?
* What new ways are AI, predictive analytics, machine learning, blockchain, etc. being applied in the industrial sector to achieve competitive advantage?
* How could Lean be integrated with trending Industry 4.0 and smart factories paradigms?
* What immediate benefits can be realized by early adopters of digital technologies?
ARTICLE IDEA DEADLINE:
Please respond to Patrikakis Charalampos at bpatr[at]puas[dot]gr with a copy to cgenerali[at]cutter[dot]com and include an extended abstract and a short article outline showing major discussion points.
FINAL ARTICLE DEADLINE: JUNE 28, 2017
10 years and counting! Such is the milestone of Verizon’s 2017 Data Breach Investigations Report (DBIR). Like in years past, the 10th version of Verizon’s research initiative highlights new patterns, evolving trends, and interesting findings in the information security field. It does so by synthesizing reports that Verizon received of discovered security incidents and breaches, […]… Read More
The post Highlights of the 2017 Verizon DBIR: Analyzing the Latest Breach Data in 10 Years of Incident Trends appeared first on The State of Security.
Every week, new courses and workshops are published to the growing Treehouse Library! Here’s a short list of what we’ve added recently, upcoming course highlights, and our weekly video update of What’s New at Treehouse.
Start learning to code today with a free trial on Treehouse.
Build An iTunes Search App – Pasan Premaratne
In this course you’ll be building an app that searches for artists in the iTunes Store and lets users browse albums and tracks. You’ll be using the iTunes Search API to put this together and in doing so you’ll learn about modeling complex endpoints, constructing URLs with parameters, concurrently downloading images using operation queues, displaying JSON data in a table view and much more
Introduction to Scala– Andy Mitre
Scala is a functional programming language, which runs on top of the Java virtual machine and can use any Java class. Scala is well suited for distributed programming and big data. It is what Apache Spark is build in and can provide better performance when compared to Python and is much less verbose than Java. Whether you’re learning about functional programming or starting a career in big data, Scala is a great place to start.
Introduction to Functional Programming – Craig Dennis
Sass is a stylesheet language that extends CSS with features like variables, nested rules, mixins and functions, in a CSS-compatible syntax. In this course, you’ll learn to use the powers of Sass to boost your front end workflow. The examples will teach you why you should use Sass in your projects. By the end, you will be writing more efficient CSS using code that is easy to read and maintain.
Code Coverage with Istanbul – Andrew Chalkley (PRO)
Code coverage is the development practice in seeing how much of your code is covered by tests. We’ll use the Node.js module Istanbul in this workshop to illustrate code coverage in Node.js projects.
Practice Column Selection and Aliasing with SQL – Andrew Chalkley
In this practice session we’ll cover selecting columns and aliasing them.
React Router (v4) Basics– (May)
Learn to use React Router v4, a declarative routing solution for React, to manage navigation and rendering of components in your applications.
The post New & Upcoming Course Highlights: iOS, Scala, Functional Programming & SQL appeared first on Treehouse Blog.
With the recent announcement that XenApp Essentials Service is now available on Microsoft Azure Marketplace, we have received great feedback from customers interested in the new service. We’ve put together this FAQ to help determine if XenApp Essentials Service …
From …
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Machine Learning Is The New Proving Ground 50% of organizations are planning to use machine learning to better understand customers in 2017. 48% are planning to use machine learning to gain greater competitive advantage. Top future applications of machine learning…
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The Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) is an invite-only organization comprised of the world’s most promising young entrepreneurs. In partnership with Citi, YEC recently launched BusinessCollective, a free virtual mentorship program that helps millions of entrepreneurs start and grow businesses.
1. Start Small
If you’re keen on integrating this relatively niche technology into your business’ logistics strategy, my recommendation is to start small. Test the product on short distances (and low premium products) first and get educated about regulations in your area to avoid any potential legal action taken against you for utilizing the technology in would-be protected “no-fly” zones.
2. Ask Yourself If You Really Need It
Certainly, it is cool. But you need to be thinking about how it makes a difference in your specific business. Product delivery might be one area. Delivering relevant and targeted ads might be another. But if you have no use for it, it’s just an unnecessary expense.
– Ismael Wrixen, FE International
3. Tout Fast Deliveries
Now local businesses can compete with the logistics abilities of large corporations. Customers can, and will, order local because they will get the products they desire more quickly. Drones could allow you the opportunity to market this capability as a unique value proposition, allowing customers to get products faster, rather than waiting for a product to arrive from somewhere further away.
4. Put Your Warehouse Near a Hub
Drone deliveries as we imagine it today are far from becoming a reality. Instead, a first approach to drone delivery will be large shipments to a central hub and smaller, local deliveries made by drones. By setting up near freight hubs, you will be the first to benefit from faster, same-day drone deliveries, both procuring items from suppliers such as Amazon as well as shipping to customers.
– Diego Orjuela, Cables & Sensors
5. Outsource Drone Management
Drone delivery sounds really sexy, but you have to be cautious – there are real logistical risks that can ruin your investment. Drone delivery is a major waste of money if you buy a drone only to have it knocked out of the sky by a red-tailed hawk (which does happen, especially in California). It’s a better idea to outsource to a company like Flirtey, so they’re handling the inherent risks.
6. Set Up in Underserved Areas
Techy metropolises will see drone delivery quickly, but this will be less so for smaller cities and residential areas. By serving these areas first, you could open yourself up for healthy business, and to the possibility of being bought if a national partner does show up in the area.
7. Partner with Other Companies to Share the Technology
While it may be too expensive to adopt as a small business, more local businesses can consider a cooperative model where they share the delivery technology, investing together to build a local delivery service for those within their cooperative.
– Angela Ruth, Due
8. Hold Off, but Be Ready to Be First
A small business shouldn’t be spending hours of their time or money right now thinking about drone delivery. That tech is years away and will be great when it lands. Stay up-to-date on developments, but don’t waste too much time on it. Be ready to invest your time and money early, when possible, to offer a competitive edge.
– Andrew Saladino, Kitchen Cabinet Kings
The post 8 Ways Small Businesses Can Tap Into the Power of Drone Deliveries appeared first on SmallBizTechnology.
