You probably already know that it’s more expensive to acquire a new customer than it is to keep a current one, right? To be more specific, the White House Office on Consumer Affairs reported that it’s six to seven times more expensive.

If you’ve got an endless marketing budget, or a quasi-monopoly in your market (as some cable companies do within a region), then you don’t have to worry too much about retaining customers.

But most businesses don’t have bottomless budgets and the bad reviews will eventually catch up with you.

The long-term business survival strategy is to keep your customers.

Customer Service Statistics

While it’s necessary to prospect for new customers, the fact is, your existing customers are your business: you have a 60-70% probability of selling to them vs only a 5-20% chance of selling to a new prospect.

So, it pays to treat your customers like gold—that’s what they are.

Seven out of 10 people will spend more with a company that they feel provides excellent customer service, according to an American Express Survey. And more than half of them (59%) would try a new company for a better customer service experience.

So, to summarize:

1. Your customers are your business.
2. People value great service.
3. They are willing to pay more for it.
4. They will go to where they can get it.  

One last stat: 80% of companies surveyed (by Lee Resources) said that they provided outstanding customer service. But only 8% of people surveyed agreed.)

So, even if you’re sure you provide superior customer service, there’s probably a thing or two you could do to ensure it.

Customer Service Marketing

The successful customer-business relationship is not unlike any successful personal relationship.  

Customers want to be properly acknowledged. They want to be treated with respect, courtesy, and maybe even admiration. They appreciate help and information, and genuine communication.

You can’t always be selling to them. That’s like a “friend” who you only call when you need a favor. It won’t last.

So in between sales, use your marketing as a form of customer service:  

• Provide valuable content. Send your customers entertaining or informative direct mail pieces. They will look forward to getting them and it will maintain the relationship, effectively selling to your customers without selling to them.

• Birthday & holiday greetings. It used to be fairly common to receive a birthday greeting in the mail from your dentist or other business. Not so much anymore. So, it really stands out as a kind gesture when you do it. (It also requires that you be collecting customer data, including their birthday.)

• Surveys. People love to be asked for their opinion or viewpoint. So, send them a survey. It doesn’t even have to be about the customer experience. It could be about something related to your industry or product/service in general.  

• Thank you’s. What if you sent your customer a postcard just to thank them for being your customer. You could even boost it with 10% “thank-you” discount.

Any one of these strategies (or others) can be put onto a postcard, for highly effective, low-cost “customer service marketing.”

In fact, you could design one right now at www.prospectsplus.com/pei and get it into the mail in a matter of minutes, right from your computer.

Or, for a superior customer service experience, give Opportunity Knocks a call at 1 (866) 319-7109. We’ll save you time by handling the design and everything else.