Do you Know Who your Best Customers are?

For most small business their “best” customers contribute more than 30% of sales and profit even though they make up only 10% of total customers. Think about this!! These are the customers that help you pay your bills. Not only do they deliver you more sales and profit directly; but they also help you increase sales indirectly by spreading good word about your business to their friends and families.
Given the importance of these customers it behooves you to know who they are. Unfortunately, not too many business owners spend time identifying these customers let alone making sure they are taken good care. In this post we give you several ways you can identify your best customers. We will look at how to take good care of them once you have identified in the subsequent posts.

• They are your repeat customers – This one is fairly obvious. All your best customers visit your business very frequently. They like your products. They like your customer service. They like everything you have to offer to them. These are your “best” customers because they generate more sales and profit for you; while at the same time you don’t have to spend a whole lot on marketing to bring them to your business.
• They are willing to pay full price – For many businesses discounting and couponing is a fact of life. For example, in the pizza business the competition is so cut-throat that you cannot survive without sending out coupons regularly. However, some of your best customers do not wait for the coupon to arrive at their door. They like your product so much that they will pay full price to get the best you have to offer. There are couple of pizza places where we live that offer such a good quality pizzas that they never send out coupons; yet customers swarm to their business willing to pay full price that is few dollars more than other pizzerias.
• They usually order your “unique” products – Unless you are selling items that are very basic and standard you have some unique products that the customers cannot find elsewhere. Your best customers love these products. They keep coming to your business for these items willing to pay full price.
• They can’t stop talking about your business to their friends and families – These customers love what they are getting from you and they want to boast about it in front of their friends and families. They will do so at every opportunity they get – in parties, at work, at church and any place they can find a platform. Now with the rise of social media they can do it even more easily and in a widespread fashion. Search for positive reviews about your business on Twitter. If you have a Facebook presence for your business browse through customer postings and see who is vocal (in a positive sense) about your business. You have found your “best” customers!!

As we mentioned earlier your best customers are the ones you don’t want to lose at any cost. It can have significant impact on your sales and profit. Now that we have shown how to identify them; we will show how to pamper them and keep them coming back to your business everyday in the subsequent posts.
Do you know who your “best” customers are? How do you identify them?