Many business owners deal with this dellima. If you were to ask most business owners who is more valuable, they’d of course say that taking care of existing customers is more (or at least equally) as important as attracting new customers. However, does the company budget and time allowances reflect that? In most cases, the answer is no.
Why is investing in current customers harder for companies to do than spending their funding and time to attract new clientelle? There are many things that factor in but a few are:
- It’s easier to see a dollar value spent = dollar returned with new clients
- It’s a quicker process to a poor lead or new client
- The mindset of new customers = growth has probably been pressed to you in other previous jobs
- Any rejection comes from a stranger that you may never see again
- Investing in current clients means spending time assuring quality in service and experience and means sometimes patching holes that are easier ignored
- It’s sometimes a slow process. Growing a fan club and depending on them takes more time than cold calling or direct mail.
So, why should we invest more in current clients rather than in seeking new clients?
- Investing in current customers can take them from being a simple customer to being a fan
- Fans are excited to spread the word and help to promote you
- Fans = new customers
- New customers provided by fans are excited to be your new customer/fan, thus spreading the word further
- A normally skeptical customer will jump in with both feet and be all in if their new to your fan club
- Once your fan club is going, they’ll keep you busy with existing clients rather than spending your time stressing for new clients. New fans will just… happen.
