Increase Customer Frequency
One of dozens of strategies listed and linked to here:
How to Make More Money
from Your Business
By Steve Gillman
One of the most cost-effective ways to make more money with
your business is to increase customer frequency. It is as simple
as this in theory: If they come twice as often you make twice
as much revenue (and usually more than double the profits, since
fixed costs don't rise with the additional sales). So let's look
at some ways to get them coming back more often.
I'll start with a business I know--carpet cleaning. Many people
wait years to have their carpets cleaned, yet if you were to
ask them how often they should be cleaned, they might say once
per year or even once every six months. In other words, these
are properly educated customers, but they just don't get around
to calling you as often as they would like. A simple solution
then, is to call them and ask if they are ready for their carpets
to be cleaned.
This is looked at on the page Use
Your Customer List, and the idea is simple enough to implement
if you have a list. Just look at it and identify those
past customers who have not used your services for a long time
and start calling them. In many service businesses a day spent
on the phone can yield thousand of dollars in sales.
Another way to more systematically increase customer frequency
is to offer a discount for it. If you have a fish-pond cleaning
service, for example, you might clean and treat a small pond
for $80 when you are called. But offer to do it for $65 if the
customer agrees to regularly scheduled monthly cleanings. Even
at the lower price you will likely make more revenue from that
customer than if you wait for them to call a couple times each
year.
There is a way to offer a discount and still make as much
in gross profit as well--while getting that customer frequency
increased. If you have a service business that covers a wide
area, and you have small accounts, you often eat up much of your
profit when servicing a small customer who is far from your home
base. For example, if you have a furnace repair and maintenance
business, a $60 furnace cleaning doesn't leave you much profit
if you pay your technician $15 per hour and he has to spend an
hour and two gallons of gas just to get to a customer.
The solution? Schedule for outlying areas. Call previous customers
in one area and tell them that if they need a cleaning you can
do it for $50 on a given day, because your crew will be in the
area on that day. In the end, they save money and you make more,
because you might get six jobs lined up for almost the same driving
time and vehicle cost.
You can also offer coupons with short expiration dates to
encourage customers to return sooner and more often. A pizzeria,
for example, can send out a coupon on each bow that is good just
for a month. In order not to irritate customers who miss the
expiration date, make it very clear, saying something like "Our
June Special!"
Look for any way to get them back through that door or on
that phone more often. Increasing customer frequency can be one
of the best ways to quickly make more money.
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