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How can we better serve our most loyal customers?

Sales & Growth questions

As a small business, you’ll know the importance of loyal customers. As well as spending more than new customers, loyal customers are also one of your biggest brand ambassadors, waving the flag for your business via their own social media accounts and also by word of mouth. But how can you keep hold of your number one fans in a competitive market? Simple techniques could be more effective than you may think.

Ways to help you deal with it:

Action plan

How to build stronger relationships with loyal customers

Effort : Medium

Developing a plan for building stronger relationships with long-term customers will make sure your business prospers.

ACTION PLANS are a structured list of steps designed to help you approach tackling a particular business challenge.

We explain why each step is important
Customise by setting your own completion dates and assign tasks
Helpful tools are provided for certain steps
A downloadable PDF version of each action plan is available

Action plan

Using research to understand the business landscape

Impact : Medium

This action plan looks at how business leaders can use different types of research to build a better understanding of the business landscape.

Action plan

Growing sales with existing customers

Effort : Medium

Creating more value for existing customers provides a sustainable way to grow your business. Follow our five-step plan to figure out the opportunity.

Action plan

Defining your unique selling point (USP)

Effort : Medium

It’s harder than ever for businesses to stand out. Defining your USP allows you to quickly communicate what makes you different.

Guide

An introduction to better serving your most loyal customers

Creating a solid base of loyal customers is one of the easiest ways to increase sales and grow your business.

GUIDES break a challenge down, providing important context and real-world experiences.

Based on SME experiences, not corporate jargon
Filled with real-world stories
Achievable steps every business can take

Other support that's available

What is customer loyalty?

What is customer loyalty?

HubSpot’s guide to customer loyalty looks at everything from why it’s important, how to keep customers loyal and suggestions for customer loyalty programmes.

Measuring customer loyalty

Measuring customer loyalty

You know that customer loyalty is important, but how do you measure it? These 12 loyalty metrics from Loyalty Lion will help you understand your customers better.

How other businesses have tackled something similar

Barnaby Lashbrooke, Time etc

Real business story

Keeping loyal customers is the key to long-term success

A focus on retaining customers has improved customer retention at Birmingham-based Time etc and London-based Disciple Media.

James Sharpe, Fabulosa

Real business story

Understanding what customers think you do can improve your messaging

Finding out what customers think they do best has been the key to making cleaning product manufacturer Fabulosa’s marketing work.

Rob Law, Trunki

Real business story

Customer feedback is essential for product development

Customer feedback should be an essential part of product development — before and after launch. Hearing what customers think offered Trunki valuable insight into whether products were meeting expectations.

The questions lots of businesses are trying to answer

What issue is keeping you awake at night? A bit of targeted support is often all you need to overcome those challenges.

Select a topic

Digital

How can I improve the digital presence my business has? How can I streamline and automate some of our business processes? How do I work out the best digital sales channels to use? How should I use the data I have to improve decision making? How do I effectively seek external digital support? How do I know if my technology is robust enough for growth? How should I best budget and plan for new technology investments? How do I assess and choose the right technology to improve business operations? How can I understand what digital tools or support my business needs? How should I go about collecting data to improve my business?

Leadership & Strategy

How do I learn to become a better leader? How do I improve the communication in my business? How do I get staff interested in our vision and values? How can I reflect on my own strengths and weaknesses as a leader? How do I give my team autonomy and get better at delegating? As a leader, how do I learn to trust others within my organisation? How do I apply learnings from other businesses to my own company? How should my role as a business leader evolve with the company’s growth? How can I balance short-term needs with long-term targets? How do I get better at noticing and reacting to warning signs?

People & Team

How can I develop the skillsets of my workforce? How can I reduce employee turnover? How can I run a better appraisals process? How can I keep my best members of staff? How do I manage an effective remote workforce? How can I develop career paths for my staff? How can I increase staff engagement and motivation? How do I deal with a challenging member of staff? How can I improve my hiring and onboarding practices? How should I performance manage my staff?

Planning

How can I work out what required skillsets are missing in the business? How can I get staff interested in the financial situation? How can I define and communicate my vision for success? How do I ensure my business can navigate a dip in trading? How do I know when to scale up my business? How can I make my business more resilient to change? How do I better inform my business plans? How do I know when to invest in my business? How can I get better at looking internally at my business? How can I balance ambition with setting realistic goals?

Sales & Growth

How can we better serve our most loyal customers? How can I identify new customers to target? How do I create targets and KPIs for my staff? How can I get a better return on investment from my marketing? How do I make sure my team and processes are ready for growth? How do I develop a clear unique selling point? How do I financially plan for new opportunities? How do I build a network to support my business? How do I benchmark my business against competitors? How can we develop new products and services?