Acquiring more customers is essential to any kind of business. In fact, having a great number of customers who support or patronize your products and services would help you to achieve success in your chosen business endeavors. However, it’s sad to say because there are many small businesses that underestimate the essence and power of customer retention.
If you have a business of any type, then it would be advisable to look for some innovative ways on how you can acquire more customers, which may help you for your business. If your customers continuously patronize your product offers, then you will surely generate more profit and income at the end of the day. It is a mere fact that if you increase the customer retention rate by about 5%, then your profit will also increase to 95%. You can easily sell items in your store from the returning customers since they already recognized your best deals and offers.
For example, you’re one of the bakery owners in your locality. You may then observe that customers will always come back to your place if they want the taste of your bread. If this is the scenario, then you already established your name in your place. Hence, your customers and other people will patronize your product, helping you with your business. As a bakery owner in your area, you may also notice and experience that customers have the so-called “trust” in your business as they enjoy the products that you offer to them. As a result, you always have regular customers who patronize your products.
As a bakery owner, how do you maintain a high number of customers in a day? Do you have some ways and approaches on how your bakery store can improve customer retention? Well, if you want to improve your sales and learn more ideas on how to keep your customers coming back and avail of your offers, then it would be better to follow the following tips and considerations.
Offer a Wide Range of Unique Options to Your Customers
Offering their needs and wants will surely help you in keeping your customers until they are satisfied with your offer. As much as possible, give them several options which cannot be found from any bakery in your place. Make sure that your bread and some other products that you have in your bakery are tasteful and have an aromatic flavor. You should capture their tastes and preferences so that they will choose to buy from your bakery instead of buying from any store in your locality. Of course, what they will look for is something that would satisfy their cravings and their taste buds.
You may also do some customizations or introduce new items in your bakery so that they will be amazed at how you prepared foods for them. When they visit and come back to your store, they will notice that another set of bread with aromatic flavor plus attractive appearances will be in front of them. With these, they will be encouraged to buy another item and taste it for good. You may also provide them some seasonal offerings since these will somehow catch their attention.
Aside from those things, you can also take advantage of some industry trends such as vegetable bread and micro desserts. These trendy items would also catch the attention of customers who may visit your store. Aside from those things, you can prepare and offer your customers baked goods and foods for their special diets. Some of them are looking for foods that can help them in their diets. So, it would be better to offer some products that are sugar-free, organic, vegan, or gluten-free. If you have observed that there is a great demand for these options, then you may start to prepare these products on a regular basis. This could be your starting point to have another set of offers for them.
Build Better Camaraderie and Relationship to Your Customers
It’s easier to imagine these things to be done, but these are quite difficult to do, especially if you’re not completely mindful of your customers. So, it would be good enough if you will keep in touch with them so that they will continuously patronize your product. But how can you improve your relationship to them? There are several ways on how you can do this for good. One of these things is to be approachable when they are inside your store. Let them feel that you also care for them. You may also give them some greetings in an approachable way whenever they visit your place. It would be nice if you will show your charismatic attitude and personality to your customers.
Implement Loyalty Programs for Promotion
If you initiated with good service and offered the high-quality product for your customers, then they will surely become your lifetime and loyal customers. However, there’s no guarantee that they will always come back even if you gave them everything that you know just to make them happy. However, you can have an assurance that they will still somehow remember your products or services because of their good quality. If your product tastes perfect among the competitors, then for sure, your customers will look for your offered products.
But for you to make sure that they will come back and buy your items in-store, then you may give them some bakery loyalty programs. You can maintain your customers because of this kind of strategy in your business. If you offer some incentives or rewards to those returning customers, then they will be encouraged to get inside your store again. Below are some of the rewards or incentives which you can offer to your customers:
- Discounted or free customizations for the pre-ordered items
- Discounts on some specific items depending on your preferred day for giving incentives
- Targeted discounts according to the purchasing habits of the customers
Once you initiated a specific loyalty program in your business, then you should track the key performance indicators. This is to understand well and enhance the loyalty program’s effectiveness. You may use some sorts of tracking tools or applications to know exactly what specific loyalty program that works well in your bakery. Once you identify the best loyalty program for your business, then you can continuously use it to generate more profit.
