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    • Action plan

    Build stronger relationships with loyal customers

    Medium effort

    High impact

    It’s common to put your efforts into winning new customers or retaining clients at risk of churn, but business leaders need to make sure they’re also spending time on loyal customers. Developing a plan for building stronger relationships with long-term customers can help to direct the efforts of your sales team and ensure your business prospers.

    • We’ve designed our action plans to be completed in the order of steps laid out and explained why each step is important
    • Customising your action plan lets you set your own completion dates, assign tasks to others and get notifications
    • Helpful tools are provided for certain steps while a tracking metric at the end will help you determine the long-term success of your effort
    • A downloadable PDF version of each action plan is available if you’d like to compete it offline
    What's involved? Ways to use this action plan Measuring impact
    1

    Spend time working with your sales team to identify your most loyal customers, tracking how long customers have been buying with you and how much they’ve spent

    Impact: medium

    Why will this help?

    It’s easy to get distracted by the heavy hitters who make a single big purchase, but this activity will make sure those customers who buy from you every year don’t slip through the cracks.

    2

    Use research to build a better idea of what similar businesses are doing to attract and retain customers

    Impact: medium

    Why will this help?

    Your customers have stuck with your business for a reason, but don’t get complacent. Keep track of how others are engaging customers and what the best practices are.

    How to do a competitive analysis

    A competitive analysis helps businesses to understand who competitors are and what makes them different.
    3

    Pick up the phone or send out a survey to loyal customers to find out why they’ve stayed with your business and what you could do to improve their experience

    Impact: high

    Why will this help?

    Speaking to customers shows that you genuinely value their support and gives you the opportunity to learn more about their experiences with your business.

    Creating a customer feedback survey

    Use this customer feedback survey to gauge how customers feel about your product or service and find ways to improve.
    4

    Put a plan in place to act on feedback from your customers to start building stronger relationships

    Impact: high

    Why will this help?

    Acting on their feedback will make loyal customers more likely to stay with you. They’ll also feel like a valued part of the business, so it’s a great way to build them into brand ambassadors.

    5

    Develop targets for your sales and marketing teams that are based on improving customer retention and loyalty, not just acquiring new customers

    Impact: medium

    Why will this help?

    It’s not enough to plan to spend more time on loyal customers – you have to walk the walk too. Making customer loyalty part of your targets demonstrates that it’s a priority and makes sure your team takes action.

    What can I do with this Action Plan?

    Start this Action Plan

    Add some extra information to this plan and we’ll help you get it done.

    • We’ve designed our action plans to be completed in the order of steps laid out and explained why each step is important
    • Customising your action plan lets you set your own completion dates, assign tasks to others and get notifications
    • Helpful tools are provided for certain steps while a tracking metric at the end will help you determine the long-term success of your effort
    • A downloadable PDF version of each action plan is available if you’d like to compete it offline

    Download and print

    Get a printable template for this Action Plan, fill it in with some target dates, and share it with your team. Pin it on the wall where everyone can see it.

    Get the printable Action Plan

    Learning Groups

    We also run Learning Groups on these topics where you can join other leaders tackling the same challenges.

    Find a Learning Group

    How will I know if my action plan is working?

    Customer survey results

    Customer surveys provide feedback on your offering

    Why this metric?

    Customer feedback surveys help you gather more information about which customers are buying from you and why.

    How do I start tracking?

    Include a short online survey in a follow-up email that thanks them for buying from your business. Collect the responses over six months to examine how customers view your business.