Sales cost is marginal compared to acquiring a new customer
It’s a sign of customer confidence
It helps with better forecasting of your business
It’s a better quality business as you and customers understand each other.
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What are the critical levers to boost repeat customers sales?
Continued customer engagement
Post-sales customer experience
Perfecting your timing
Using customer touch-points for sales
World-class customer service
Sharp customer analytics and targeting
Special Repeat-sales packages & campaigns
Lever #1: Continued Customer Engagement
A customer does not want to be a transaction. He wants to be an asset. An asset needs maintenance to be productive. If the customer is a car, you need to understand its user manual. Regular engagement with a customer is a must.
Salespeople need mind-set change that every engagement is not a sales transaction. A salesperson who wants to sell in every meeting is not a good choice. A customer does not want to be sold, he wants to be helped.
Action
There is a need for minimum benchmarks for relationship contacts with existing customers.
You need to train your staff on how to manage these relationship visits.
Visits are not the only way to engage your customers. You can set-up Email/SMS communications on the latest business updates.
Most important of all, there is a need to understand customer business and challenges. Enterprises need a passion to help make their customers successful.
Lever #2: Post-Sales Customer Experience
Positive post-sales experience is the best brand-building for repeat customers. Here are some of the elements, which can turn a customer experience from ‘Good’ to ‘World-Class’.
A salesperson should stay in touch with the customer even after getting the order.
He should try to be the single point of contact until the order is delivered.
Post Fulfilment follow-up on customer satisfaction on the product.
Take customer feedback and ensure that it is acted upon.
Action
An enterprise needs to be as focused on building the post-sales processes, as they do in pre-sales.
So upgrade CRM systems to track till order fulfillment and customer feedback
Make post-sales customer feedback as part of the sales team’s performance
Lever #3: Perfecting timing for repeat customers
Getting repeat sales needs you to understand customer buying patterns. For annual/periodic renewals of policies, contracts, subscriptions- it is easy. For non-renewal products, one needs to be diligent to anticipate customers’ needs
Therefore, you have to know:
The seasonal patterns
Customer’s current inventories
Client sector’s demand cycles
Past purchase history
Future growth plans.
If you pitch when your customer is going to be having a need, it is surely a least effort sale.
Action
This comes of continued engagement with the customer. Ideally, if a salesperson has (say) 100 customers assigned to him. He should be able to have a tracking sheet, where he can mark the timing of sales, based on all the information he has.
Lever #4: Using Customer touch-points for sales
You touch customers multiple times after sales are closed. This includes:
Post-sales follow-up
Customer service call
Periodic maintenance visit
A relationship call
Each of these touchpoints can be used to influence or direct pitch for sales. At the same time, a customer does not want to be sold when he is calling for lodging a complaint. So each touchpoint has to be handled differently.
Action
Salespeople are expected to sell when they meet the customer.
You should train employees from functions like service, maintenance, and delivery teams. For example
A service engineer can handover the latest product brochure, along with a service completion form.
A maintenance engineer could put an additional sticker related to a campaign on the installation. He can also talk about the latest technical upgrades released by the company.
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Lever #5: World-Class Customer Service
All customer engagement activities are of no use if a customer does not get help when he needs it.
Give excellent customer service, listen to customer complaints, and listen to the customer.
Action
Implement Customer Service Automation including capturing customer issues via Web, Chat, Email, SMS, and others.
Establish performance management metrics on response to and resolution of a customer complaint.
Communicate with the customer to share the status of his complaint.
Ensure excellence in the service network, spares, training, periodic maintenance, and warranty management.
Lever #6: Repeat Customer Analytics and Targeting
With existing customers, you have a tremendous benefit of having in-depth customer information.
You have details on:
Customer buying and payment patterns
Service history
Detailed demographic and social profile.
So you can do smart and micro-level targeting. After you have segmented the customers, you can target them for repeat sales in terms of products that they can buy, how much they can buy, and when they can buy.
Action
Please keep in mind that the cost of selling to an existing customer is far lower. So it is worth an investment in the ‘Customer Relationship & Marketing’ unit. This unit will create targeted campaigns with targeted products to generate repeat customers.
Each such campaign to have defined and quantified objectives (Sales Value, Number of Customers sold, sales margin..) depending on the type of campaign
Lever #7: Special Repeat-Sales Packages & Campaigns
All humans want to be given special treatment. Customers are no less. With the right targeting and special sales packages, you can multiply repeat customers.
In a way, you are sharing the benefit of lower acquisition cost with the customer, while gaining his loyalty. These packages could include:
Discounts
Value-Adds (like Free Installation, Coupons)
Special Edition/Designs
Free One year Service and Maintenance
Special Customer Batch/Club
Action
As a company, you should set-up ‘Repeat Sales’ machinery, which should be part of CRM Unit. Every period (say monthly), you should create targeted campaigns on ‘Special Deals’ for existing customers.
Campaign management should be process-driven machinery. It should be using all possible components like:
Customer communication (Face to Face, Email, SMS, FB messenger, BTL and ATL promotion)
Campaign design & approval (products, marketing, finance and production)
