The Ultimate Guide To Losing Customers (And How You Can Fix It)

Good customer service isn’t just about smiling, taking orders, and delivering the product. It goes way beyond that. 

It’s in those little things that you do for your customers that make them like you and want to come back to you. 

When customers like you and keep coming back to you, it means you make more money and have a good reputation in the block. 

If you are losing customers, then you’re probably making some critical mistakes and don’t realise it. You are constantly having sales and discounts but everyone keeps walking out on you.

Where are you going wrong?

Let us break the news for you: it’s not always about the sales or discounts. Sometimes all they expect to hear is a “Hi, Vanessa, welcome back!”. 

Yes, really. This study shows that 63% of consumers expect personalisation as a standard of service and want to be recognised as an individual. Your customers want to feel a connection with your business. 

Even things like failing to promptly answer their queries or making them feel unappreciated can turn off a customer. 

Having said that, here are six guaranteed ways to lose your customers:

Don’t acknowledge your customers 

When customers walk into your store, ignore them. Don’t greet them, don’t say hello, don’t even smile. Just stay where you are and don’t make eye-contact with them. 

Be rude to them 

If they talk to you anyway, give them a one-word answer and then get back to what you were doing. Tell them to come back another time. Or just shrug – they’ll get the hint. 

About 37% of customers switch to another company after experiencing rude and unhelpful staff. 

Remember not to respond to customers immediately when they have a problem. Reply a week later. Or better yet, don’t reply at all. Leave them on ‘seen’.

Ignore your customers’ feedback 

Are there papers in your ‘suggestions’ box? Throw them all out. 

You’ve been running your business for five years and you know what you’re doing. Who are they to give you comments and feedback? 

Don’t reward your loyal, regular customers  

So what if this lady in striped suit comes in twice every day to buy four cups of coffee from you? 

It doesn’t mean that you have to know her name or give her a personalised greeting. It doesn’t mean that you need to give her any points or discounts.

Yours is the only coffee shop in the building anyway, so they have no choice but to go to you for coffee. 

Ignore customer experience and focus on profits 

This is a business after all. Your number one priority is making money, not making small talk with your customers and finding out what’s new with them. 

You’re already being generous by having the occasional sale and massive discounts. You don’t have time to deal with returns or refunds. Or to employ more people. If customers have time to shop, they have time to wait in line at the check out. 

Force customers to give you a five-star review

You want that five-star badge on Google and all your social media pages. So you get every customer that walks in to go over to your pages and rate give you a good rating. After all, it’s only going to take them 30 seconds to do that. 

Stop Losing Customers Today

Are you making any of the mistakes above? If yes, it’s about time you stop.

Losing customers or failing to retain your loyal customers can destroy your business – no matter how good your business is. 

This study found that over $62 billion is lost annually by American companies – due to poor customer service. You want to make sure you’re not part of that statistics. 

Customers are human beings and should be treated like one. Make them feel welcomed when they visit your store. 

Get to know their names if they look familiar. If you happen to learn that it’s their birthday or anniversary, do something nice for them. 

49% of customers said they would leave a company if they did not feel appreciated – New Voice Media

If you have too many customers and cannot keep track of every one, just automate the whole process with a smart member system like Eber. 

That way, you know whose birthday is coming up and who is visiting your store for the 20th time this month. And you know what to do for them too. 

Give them a first-class service, and they’ll be happy to leave you an excellent review on the internet without even being asked. 

Hit us up if you’re ready to kickstart your smart member solution and want to know your customers like the back of your hand.