"It's more cost-effective to keep a customer happy than to have to acquire a new one."

Does your product or service benefit from repeat business from existing customers? You can increase the value of your company's services, and increase the amount of business your current customers bring, by practicing exceptional customer relations.

• Follow up after each sale or business transaction, and thank them for their business
• Send your customers coupons or promotional "gifts" to thank them for their business, and encourage future sales or patronage.
• Conduct a brief online or telephone survey (with an incentive for answering) to help you find strengths or weaknesses in your business
• If there has been a problem, ask if it has been resolved sufficiently
• Contact clients that you have not seen in some time, and offer to help them personally when the need arises

Are your customers aware of all of the services or products that you offer? If you offer a range of products or services, then part of your customer relations effort can be educating customers about similar (or even completely different) products and services that you offer, that might suit their individual needs. Set Now Solutions (the creators of CorpNote) recently sent out a comprehensive list of all the services they provide, to all of their existing customers. They've been doing web art, video and multimedia for years, but the clients that only used them for web development thought they only did web development. Shortly thereafter, they received many phone calls from clients to find out more about services they hadn't used before. Several clients said, "I didn't know you did that, and we have a need for that service right now!"

The bottom line... The more you contact your customers, the more you learn about them, and the better chance you have at retaining them as customers. Whether you use telephone, postal mail, or online technology, the message is clear: your existing customers are essential to your business, and customer relations maintains an important connection. Good customer contact isn't just about selling...there are often times that a customer might be dissatisfied, but might not want to be troubled with making the effort to resolve the problem. If you provide them with the opportunity to be heard, then you can make it right. If left alone, many consumers will resolve the problem by simply not coming back.

By maintaining a regular dialogue with your customers, expressing your appreciation for their support, and giving them reasons to continue the relationship, your business will grow by their continued patronage, and by the countless referrals that you may never even know came from them!

Have an opinion on this article? Please send an email to smiller@setnow.com.

— ©2003-2006, Set Now Solutions, LLC. All rights reserved.

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