I get a lot of one-off sales but seldom do customers come back for more. What am I doing wrong?

How do I grow my repeat business with my customers?

Customers never come to your store or business to buy something – they come to satisfy a specific need which, at that time you are able to facilitate. Once they’ve arrived at your location or connected to your website, they have already been a part of a customer journey which, for reasons we’ll explain in a moment, this time led them to you. The customer journey however is not just a point of transaction – it is the entire experience which begins when the customer identifies a need (sometimes even earlier, which you should be in a position to influence), through their process of decision making, procurement and several post sale actions which are critical to retaining that customer for future business.

A customer journey is either one-directional or a loop feeding on itself. In the first case it is but a transaction, with low probability of being repeated. In the second, you become an integral part of the customers' needs fulfillment loop – clearly where you want to be as a business owner providing products or services.

So this is the question which a business owner suffering from single instance sales needs to ask themselves. Have I crafted a customer journey which leads the customer back to me? Chances are that is not the case.

So what is a Customer Journey? It is the physical and emotional path which every customer goes through in their pursuit of satisfying a need. And you have the opportunity to influence almost every step in that journey if you orchestrate your business correctly. There can be many steps in that journey but for simplicity we’ll tackle three basic ones – before, during and after the sale.

Before - when a customer identifies a need or is thinking about something which might develop into a need. Your role is to paint the vision of possibilities for the customer to choose from, ideally with something you have to offer. A well-orchestrated and targeted marketing campaign assures your (future) customer is equipped with knowledge from which to make their decision.

During – the experience created at the point of sale (physical or online) has to match closely the vision which you marketed to your client. Visual appeal, ease of locating the item, ease of transaction – all contribute to reinforcing the image the client developed earlier and will likely persist for a while, perhaps even until their repeat purchase.

After – the experience of assuring that nothing was missed and creating for the client a reason to come back again in the future. Whether through email coupons, information about other adjacent products – here we can be very creative – the client’s journey does not end here but rather should be seeded with incentives to start the beginning of their next entry into the journey process, for the next future transaction.

A well-crafted and executed customer journey assures that companies enjoy predictable and profitable continued business from an increasingly more loyal customer base. Mess this part up, and you likely will see declining revenues and frustration from seeing your business work hard while producing marginal results. If you feel like your business lacks the predictable continuity you expect, please come talk to us. We will dive deep into your operating model and orchestrate and help you develop and manage an effective customer journey program, and by so doing, help you accelerate your business.