Build A Loyal Customer Base With These Tips: Photo by Patrick Tomasso on Unsplash

Every business needs customers to make a profit – it is the very foundation of it.  If there are no customers, there are no business, just an idea, and products. Once a company has an established customer base built up, the next step is to attract more and more customers to help it grow, and in some cases, purely stay afloat. Most new start-ups spend time, in the beginning, considering who their target audience is, through market research, and who they want as customers, while also thinking about the marketing tools that they will use to attract them.

To be a success, however, you need to ensure that these customers come back over and over again, preferably bringing new customers with them.  There is so much more to creating a loyal customer base than offering products and services. You need to reward them for their continued loyalty and provide as many options as possible to them. Here, we are looking at just a few of the different choices that you might give them.

1) Products

These days, we are all so used to having the ability to customize and personalize items. Many major retailers and brands have a massive range of products, giving us the choice of colors, sizes, shapes, styles, printing, engraving and so much more, usually for the same price.  Small businesses are unlikely to be able to offer that to quite the same extent but think of the ways you can give the customers more control and choice over their purchase.

2) Payment Options

To keep your customers coming back, you need to offer a range of payment options. We no longer all carry cash around with us, and most of us want the option of paying with a credit or a debit card, PayPal or even using our iPhones for Apple Pay. If your store is primarily online, there are even more options available to you.

3) Delivery options

Online retail giants such as Amazon have given us high expectations for delivery. We are no longer happy to wait over a week for our products to arrive at our front door as we once did. No – we want deliveries to be fast and free.  As a small business, you probably can’t offer same day deliveries, but next day delivery may not be out of the realm of possibility. If you can’t do that, look at having a specified day, so your customers know exactly when their parcel is going to arrive or consider offering delivery to a local pick up points or stores, so customers don’t have to worry about waiting in for their parcel or missing it.

That is just three potential options you might want to consider offering your customers. It is important to remember that customers are more demanding these days – they want and expect more, and their shopping experience, whether in person or online, should feel personal and valued. Look at the various ways in which you can do this, and they will keep coming back.