Adding The Personal Touch To Your Business

How To Know For Sure That A Customer Is A Lifetime Consumer

by Marie Cox

Customers love your products. They love what you do and what you offer them. They love what they get from using your products. So, why do some of these customers leave? It really is not a mystery. Some leave because of price. Some leave because they have stopped using your products. Still others leave because they have lost interest. So, how do you know for sure that a customer will be a lifetime customer when he/she excitedly buys up products? Here is how.

Customer Lifetime Analysis

It helps to know the spending and trending habits of your consumers. You can actually buy software that tracks the purchases made by each customer to see how frequently each customer makes a purchase. The software also tells you the average spending amount of each customer. Typically, loyal customers spend about the same amount on every purchase they make. They know exactly what they like, and how often they want to replenish their supply or inventory. Their purchase history is fairly consistent and remains so over a year or more.

This is quite different from the customer that purchases some items all of the time, but wildly purchases this or that product randomly. This type of "sampling" behavior is indicative of someone who is checking out your goods to see if they are of uniform quality across the board or of someone who likes to try everything and remains loyal to very little. These customers may also be the ones that request refunds or frequently complain, too.

Doing the Customer Analysis Yourself vs. Hiring Customer Forecasting Services

While you can certainly buy the aforementioned software and do this on your own, there is a very good chance you will forget to even look at the results or keep up with the program on your own. After all, running a business has a ton of facets that you have to keep track of and keep going simultaneously. It is a better idea to hire (and allow) a customer forecasting services company to do the tracking and analyzing for you.

The forecasting company installs the software and tracks your customers. It uses the collected data over the course of several months or business quarters to predict which customers will remain loyal. It is common knowledge that only a very small percentage of customers remain loyal, but that those customers make up the bulk of your business. Ergo, when you see the results of the analytical data, do not be too surprised to see that it predicts very few customers as loyal.

Of course, the benefits to hiring this service outweigh any results. You continue on, business as usual, and the service does its own thing in the background. You are provided the results via email, snail mail, or in person, depending on how the forecasting company operates.

Play to Your Strengths

Once you know exactly who is likely to be a loyal customer, "play" to them. Provide them with loyal customer perks and rewards. Give them a free product from time to time. This keeps these customers coming back, and keeps your profits rolling in.

Some of the people they refer to you by word of mouth may become loyal customers too, but only the customer lifetime analysis programs can tell you for sure. If these customers become loyal, then you definitely should have a rewards program in place for your original loyal customers. The original loyal customers are your bread and butter, and have helped you grow and expand your business. Most loyal customers will tell you that they stay because your loyal customer rewards makes them feel special, and well it should.

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