How To Improve Services & Clients Patronage

"To keep customers coming back, businesses must have excellent customer service and strive to improve at all times"

For a business to succeed and to keep customers coming back while attracting more patronage, experts say it requires an excellent customer service. They add that, no matter how good the service is, there is the need for it to be improved upon regularly. Doing so will prevent them from inadvertently causing their customers to patronize their competitors, thereby reducing their chances of survival and growth.

"One common principal held by ALL world-class companies is a recognition of the customer as  most important asset"

Companies who have used such a principal to increase market share, increase profits, and strengthen their competitive amour. Excellence in customer service, apart form being an effective competitive tool, provides a powerful way to align all of one's key organizational processes to achieve synergy - irrespective of whether or not the organization is for-profit or not-for-profit. 

Patronage concentration is a term used in marketing. It is the share of an individual consumer's expenditures in an industry that is spent at one company. It is the amount that a person spends at one company divided by the amount that person spends at all companies in the industry.

Understand obstacles customers face

According to him, many managers forget (or don’t know) what it is like to be a customer of their own business.

To do this, he stresses that observation is important.

“Watch your customers’ movements and behaviour when they are in your organization. Are they visibly annoyed? Do they stand in line, looking at their watch? Can you tell by their body language that they would rather be somewhere else? Do your front-line staff seem attentive to their needs? Gather this information as you go about your daily tasks,” he explains.

The following tips were among five recommended by Forbes Magazine Contributor, Sunday Steinkirchner, in an article published in 2012:

Be available

If a customer can’t get hold of you when they need to, you could lose them forever. We recently changed both our insurance provider and web developer, and the decisions were based on availability and accountability. With the new companies, we get the owner on the phone every time, and they’re there day or night if a catastrophe happens. In our own business, we value face-to-face interaction with customers, which is often a rarity these days. Whether it’s traveling across the country for trade shows or taking time for a quick coffee or Skype session, our strongest relationships are with the customers we know personally and keep in contact with regularly.

Offer knowledge

Building strong relationships with our customers is great, but we also get to offer and trade knowledge with them. In our trade, a customer can compare several competing copies of a book online, but they won’t get a conversation about the title’s complicated printing history. When we’re speaking with customers, we spend the majority of time talking about the merchandise itself, trends in the market, and the customer’s own collecting habits. Afterward, we negotiate a deal. A customer can even know more than you do on a particular topic! Take advantage of this opportunity to learn more.

Trade shows are another great way you can offer knowledge to your customers. Organize seminars with expert speakers to draw potential customers interested in your product or services.