Your website is up and running, you have great looking pages, terrific copy, great product or service, the SEO gods have smiled upon you, gigs of bandwidth traffic. A lot of sweat and hard work went into setting up your site, to draw in hordes of customers. But what kind of customers are they?

Do they bookmark your site? Give you repeat business? Refer their friends? Or are they out doing the “lowest cost search here” thingy? Do they fall to other places offering cutthroat deals? What do they say about you? Are your customers content with you? Do you have loyal customers?

* Convenient Hassle-free service

Is your site easy to navigate? You know where everything is at, but you’re not the one buying. Is it obvious to them how to retain your services? Is it an easy process? Do you make it convenient for them to re-order? Or do you make them jump through hoops each time?

* Expert Advice

Show off your expertise. Who knows more about your subject matter, you or those who came to your site looking for a solution? Keep current in your industry. Share some of that knowledge. Let your light shine. Add content throughout the year. Anticipate your client’s needs with the change in seasons, holidays, market conditions, etc. What is changing in your niche on the web? How does it affect your customers? Find some new great deals. Be the expert.

* Share something of value

Share valuable information. Give a sample. One of my favorite sites not only had prompt shipping, decent prices. In addition they always included a sample of a related product and a personalized thank you note with each purchase. This alone increased their sales and word of mouth referrals dramatically.

* Let your customers know how much you care

Do you call them by their name? Or is it just dear customer we appreciate your business, please buy more stuff from us and make us rich. Don’t bother contacting us, we are too busy counting your money.

Thank your customers for their business. Treat them with respect. Set yourself apart from your competitors. Offer advice pertinent to their needs. Develop a newsletter, put some kind of reward system in place for frequent shoppers, or send out cards celebrating an important event, make it personal.

If you don’t care about your customer, why should they care about you? They’re back doing the "lowest cost search here" deal. Tick them off enough and they are telling everyone “Don’t go there!”

Loyal customers aren’t dead. Treat your clients as gold.

Copyright 2005 Heidi Caswell. All rights reserved.

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