Relocation is a necessary part of advancing your business and a sign of growth. That your previous facilities can no longer provide adequate support for the scope of your activities. As such, it is not something to be avoided or disliked. However, this doesn’t make getting through it any easier! Aside from the expenses, such a relocation entails concern over losing some or all of your customer base. With having likely spent a considerable time-based in a location, you will have gotten to know the neighborhood. You will have earned yourself regular customers. People who count on you for a service and whom you count on for profit. Without them, you would have to build your customer retention back up all over again. In this article, we answer the simple question of how to keep customers when relocating your business.
Notify your customers
The first step of your plan to keep customers when relocating your business is spreading the word among your regulars. You can have your employees do so in person when they approach your business. You can even make calls if you have particularly close cooperation with any of your customers.
The important thing is to start spreading the news well in advance. Make posters and notices and hang them around your store. Have your employees encourage customers to visit you at your new location. And, of course, make sure that the information about your future address is provided in a clear way, as well as featured in easily visible fonts on the paraphernalia you do have made.
Make use of social media to keep customers when relocating your business
In an age reliant on social media marketing, you would be remiss not to use it to keep customers when relocating your business. The first and most obvious use of social media is getting the word out. After all, there’s a limit to how much you can spread the information using only your employees and place of business.
If you’re running something like a store or restaurant, then this might be a pretty decent route to customer retention. However, if you’re running a business such as a renovation or moving company, chances are people won’t be coming to visit you directly all that often. So, social media posts and investment in a few online ads will help immensely. Another useful use of them is their part in allowing you to perform trend analysis, for example, for moving companies, relocation industry analysis could be very helpful during a period such as this.
Offer your services online
If your business does not yet have a strong online presence, then this is the time to work on it. Taking advantage of social media is all well and good. However, what you really need, both in the short term to keep customers when relocating your business, and for your long term efforts, is a solid site for your business. If you manage to build one, it will grant you the opportunity to start offering your services online.
This will help your efforts immensely since your customers will no longer be bound to the physical location of your business. It will also make it easier to utilize helpful tools, capitalizing on the upsides of CRM software solutions and similar. If you can build up the required foundation for it, you might even be able to start offering deliveries. Without having to rely on a third party, of course.
Print out some flyers or similar to help you keep customers when relocating your business
Another option, albeit much more intense on human resources, would be relying on flyers, printouts, and notices. You would have to send out your employees to actively spread the word around the neighborhoods most of your customers come from. This is an excellent option if you have a lower number of daily customers, as might be the case for specialty stores or similar. It does, however, mean that some of your employees will be busy with the footwork and therefore indisposed.
The bright side of this method is that you can employ it in the neighborhood you will be moving to as well. Particularly if you are trying to promote an opening event. As such, you are provided a chance to not only maintain but actually expand your customer base!
Organize an opening event
A good opening event can be absolutely crucial in your efforts to keep customers when relocating your business. It can be nearly anything, too. You can offer discounts for your services. You can put on some kind of a show for the customers visiting your business. Or even offer your services for free for the first several customers who approach you immediately after opening. You can even host a mini lottery with various prizes, with some of them being discounts and others free services.
Whatever you settle on, make sure it is included front and center in your marketing and awareness-raising efforts concerning your move. It would also be smart not to forget the cost of such events! Learning how to calculate relocation costs and balance your expenses with your goals will be important. Particularly with your customer base in upheaval and future earnings still uncertain.
Final Advice
With our guide on how to keep customers when relocating your business drawing to an end, we hope we have made apparent the pattern of what you should be focusing on. And that is making sure that your customers know you will not simply stop being part of their lives. You need to impress on them that you might be moving away, yes, but that they can still count on your services. That they will still be able to reach you. And that you will maintain the same level of quality that they know and count on. Just remember to start your efforts on time! You need to spread the word of your relocation well in advance if you want them to bear fruit in the way you hope.