I had just been reading Drew’s blog and linked to yours – It was a Monday Morning!

You are right. Developing the long term relationship from a on-off to a regular customer helps develop cross-selling, up-selling, referrals etc. A closer relationship with your customers, lets you understand – and fulfill their specific requirements better. That understanding will help to develop better products and services, in turn helping to generate more new business. It’s all about listening and learning.

Nigel

Also think beyond simple retention. Focus on building a relationship that can lead to referrals, WOM, increased spend etc…

NB: Just or clarity, the last line of the post was a link to Drew McLellan’s blog

Mark

This is the kind of information that you know about – but it takes someone else to actually write (or type) it before you take notice and say “Oh yeah, I remember thinking about that once!”

It’s important to remember that if you don’t concentrate on retaining customers first, the new customers you attract today will not be retained tomorrow. Get your retention strategy bang on and then start to attract the new business, then watch the pounds (or dollars) stack up!