STUDENTS' CORNER - 205

Retention of Customers

It is said the platform of a business is not paved with gold. It just means that business is not a rosy bed but one of stiff thorns, meaning full of challenges. And retention of customer is one of the major challenges any business worth the name has to address effectively and efficiently.

First of all, as we discussed earlier, the business house should know that it has casual customer who can easily switch brand and consistent customer who  is actually  a long-term customer who thus proves rather what is called a profitable customer. A profitable customer is one who yields a stream of reliable revenue to the company. And the profitable customers must be treated differently by the company with additional benefits and service from the company. The nature and structure of the company can decided what additional benefits and service and the profitable customer must know that he is recognized and treated differently by the company; the customer knowing this fact is essential because it tends to strengthen his ‘loyalty’ to the company.  

Communicating in a gentle cultivated way to the profitable customer that he is dealt with a special attention is called a ‘touch point’. Touch points must be delivered with utmost care with genuine regard for the customer.  At any point of time, the sensitivity of a customer must not be underestimated. In a catering business,  the bearers are particularly trained in delivering the touch points. In fact, all business houses must train the sales people how to deal with the customer.  Say, a bearer in a restaurant can say to a profitable customer, ‘Sir, today we have your favorite item; can I take order for it, if you feel like taking today?’ In delivering the sentence the bearer must never be mechanical because any mechanical statement will not fetch a good response from the customer. There is a thinnest line that differentiates business promotion from genuine concern. Rendering the sentence is indeed effective in the sense the customer feels the bearer has taken care to note down his favorite food; and if the sentence is uttered with tonal concern for the customer, it is efficiency.  Of course, business needs both effectiveness and efficiency.

Building a good data base precedes any efforts towards retention of the customers. Care must be taken to build a data base.  A good data base has a wealth of information; it can help form a road map to a good business since it has plenty of information about the customers. The very quantified volume of the information will give hope of business since the market has adequate customers.

Like the customer data base, the business house must also give attention to other databases for products, for suppliers and for agents and resellers so on. In a way the very act of collection and construction of databases will yield insights into the business; how to go about; whether there is ample scope for entry into the market with a reasonable estimate of market share and many more.

We will see some about database in relation to customers in our next.