Comments on: How Not to Retain Your Key Customers

By: Susan Oakes

Susan Oakes — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 21:16:36 +0000

Thanks Joel and when you think about it no one likes to be ignored. Unfortunately customers can have long memories which we can sometimes forget.

By: Joel Libava

Joel Libava — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 10:37:13 +0000

Susan,
Nice job on this post. You are right about what you said concerning the fact that you should not forget your current customers when you think of “new customer” promos.

The Franchise King®

By: Susan Oakes

Susan Oakes — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 00:11:18 +0000

Hi Sarah,

Your example is a simple way to keep in touch and obviously works. Thanks for your comment.

By: Sarah Mitchell

Sarah Mitchell — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 08:45:22 +0000

Hi Susan,

It’s common knowledge that a sale to an existing customer is easier and less expensive than finding a new customer. You’ve made excellent points in your article. I try, as matter of habit, to pick up the phone and speak to an existing customer every week. It’s an easy way to keep in touch and the calls almost always turn up something good for me along with some extra good will.

By: Tweets that mention How Not to Retain Your Key Customers | M4B Marketing -- Topsy.com

Mon, 12 Jul 2010 08:40:30 +0000

[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Yoni . Yoni said: RT @BizSugar How Not to Retain Your Key Customers http://bit.ly/48FmUt [...]

By: BizSugar.com

BizSugar.com — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 06:53:12 +0000

How Not to Retain Your Key Customers…

When marketing your small business, it is tempting to provide tempting offers to new customers. However when many do this they forget to include or provide similar offers to current customers. Here are 6 tips on how not to ignore your current customers…

By: Susan Oakes

Susan Oakes — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 22:39:09 +0000

Learning from big businesses is usually so helpful for all of us in small business, but I think this one area that small businesses can shine.
You are right about the acquisition costs and maybe this is why there is always talk about the Churn rate of customers.

By: gopalshenoy

gopalshenoy — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 22:11:09 +0000

Susan,

Great article. I have always had this problem with Boston Globe and my cable company Charter. They want to offer new customers a hefty discount and want to charge me double the rate though I have been a loyal customer for close to 10 years with the Globe and 2 years with Charter.

Everytime Globe tries to fleece me, I threaten to stop the subscription and go to Boston Herald and they give me 50% discount rate for 12 weeks and then I have to remember to call them, threaten them again to continue getting the discount. Not sure why I stick around still – but I like reading my newspaper with my morning coffee.

Charter is the same story – they had an awesome deal that I found out about, but when I called them they said it is only for brand new customers. It was not free, but deeply discounted rates. For some reason, companies don’t seem to understand the acquisition cost of a new customer vs. keeping an existing customer happy.

By: Anita Campbell

Anita Campbell — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 20:14:55 +0000

Hi Susan, this is so important today when marketing budgets may need to shrink a little. Focusing on existing customers is much more cost effective.

Me, I am looking at technology to make it easier, swifter and cheaper to stay in touch with existing customers. That’s a start. Right now, communicating is so “one-off” that it’s hard to think about getting more sales from existing customers, because the effort is labor intensive.

Best,
Anita

By: Retaining Your Current Customer Base

Retaining Your Current Customer Base — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 19:04:12 +0000

[...] Marketing Blog, that has crossed my own mind on more than one occasion. In her article, “How Not To Retain Your Key Customers“, Susan questions why companies focus marketing on obtaining new customers instead of making [...]