Detailer business owners are so busy detailing cars that they too often forget to take care of the customers they have worked so hard to attain.
I would bet that most detail businesses spend at least 90% of their efforst and limited advertising budget on acquiring nrew business. That means the remaining 10% is spent taking care of existing customers.
Consider what you spend on advertising per year and you will see that you are not taking care of your existing customers who stand to be your most profitable customers.
It is proven that the easiest and least expensive customer to sell if one that has already purchased your service.
The detail industry in general spends too much time and too much money trying to acquire new customers. Not to say that is not an important part of your marketing plan, but you should have hundreds of customers in your database that you can keep if you attend to them.
There are no formal statistics on this but I would estimate that a detailer has a better than 75% chance of getting a satisfied past customer back for detail services if they stay in contact with them.
On top of that do you realize that over 30% of your customers have a relative or friend that can purchase a detail service if they referred them to your business. Do you even ask for customers to make referrals?
Very few detailers track their marketing and retension efforts. They probably cannot tell you what works and what does not. And, more often than not they keep doing the same thing they have done year after year, getting the same results.
INSANITY: "Doing the same thing over and over again and hoping for different results."
So are you doing to do something to retain customers? What?
What do you do to incentivize customer to remain loyal to your detail business? You do not have to give anything away to keep your customers loyal. All it takes is a little attention and a little consideration. Isn''t that what we all want as consumers?
There are numerous ways to retain your customers. But you must manage and measure what you do. No program you embrace is good or bad until you measure it.
Why not start investing in customer retension before spending another dollar in advertising. It's value cannot be overemphasized. Take this seriously that is why I have taken the time to post it.
Adpot some type of program to help you achieve results and measure and track how the program is working. If you do not do this you are loosing customers to other detail shops who care for them more than you do. That is why detail businesses loose customers. They do not contact them again and another detail business does, just when they need another detail.
Regards
Bud Abraham