Welcome back! In this last part of the “How to get customers?” episode we discuss the last step of the water wheel metaphor: customer care.
Customer care
There is an old truth among salespeople that it is easier to sell to existing customers than to chase new ones. This is really about the trust you build when your product delivers good value to your customers and the trust your existing customers have in you based on their previous experience with you and your products. Knowing and using this as a freelancer or entrepreneur can be a game-changer.
What happens to the relation between you and your customers during and after the transaction is completed? Let’s use the water wheel metaphor again to get some perspective. When the water has driven the wheel for one turn, where does it go next? Do you lead the water back to the pond so it can come back to the wheel again, or do you let them splash away at random?
Make sure to nurture the relations that you built with your clients. Depending on your product and industry, you can try to personally reach out to people and ask for feedback about the product and show that you care about their experience with your product. You can send thank-you emails or messages, personalized newsletters and offers for future purchases.
As an entrepreneur you are in charge of your product, business, but also of the relations with your clients.
In all phases of the process we have described here, it is up to you to take good care of those who are interested in you. The way you nurture the relationship with your existing customers determines whether or not your customers stay close to you and easily remember you the next time they need something you can offer.
Extra tip
Analyze your customer care process by stepping out of your freelancer or entrepreneur shoes and putting yourself in the shoes of the client. Start by looking at what happens after a purchase is made. To make it more concrete, look at your last ten customers: how did you communicate with them after their purchase?
Do you communicate with them today?
Are they added as subscribers to your newsletter?
Are they following you on social media?
Did you ask them to write a review on your website or on your social media?
Depending on your product and industry, do you have a group where customers can be invited where you host activities and where they can exchange their experience with other clients?
Create a routine that suits you and your customers and then follow it consistently every time you finish with one of your customers so that you can continue to communicate with them and support them.
Customer care includes the clients who have not yet made a purchase as well. Look at the ones you contacted in the third step of the water wheel, when you made them an offer. How do you continue to communicate with those who said no? Some of them may still be potential customers when the time is right. Look at how you can adapt the routine that you have for existing clients and tweek it to fit this group of potential clients.
Closing thoughts
By actively and consciously working with your company at all four steps of the water wheel, you get a good flow of potential customers around your company. If you feel that it stops in some part, go there and get it started again. It is common, for example, that when things become routine and you are fully focused on delivering your product, the work of filling in the pipeline is forgotten and the flow of new customers stops.
This is a constant work in progress. Just like everything in a freelancer or entrepreneur's journey. You need to constantly check the water wheel system and see where things get stuck and work on maintaining that section of the process. By keeping customer care at the top of your mind, you create channels which connect the end of your process back to the pool of people who know your business and replenish your source of potential customers.
You cannot make everyone be a recurring client - but many can be led into the flow of interest again. The ones you lose can, if they have a good image of you, help you spread the word about your product. Nothing is wasted. Make sure to take good care of the process at all stages.
That’s all for this time, next article I am turning focus to another important part of running your own successful business. See you in the next episode to get tips and useful hacks in financial management and budgeting.