What are Sticky Customers and Why You Need Them
Are you losing customers?
This is perfectly normal. Google suggests that you will lose 15% of your customers every year. According to the Customer Success Report the average B2B company has a customer churn rate of 6.7%.
There are a lot of reasons why you may be losing customers. The competition is constantly trying to poach your clients. Some customers will leave because they feel that they will be better looked after elsewhere. Others follow better prices. And some just stop using print.
You need to win a lot of new customers just to stand still. Increasing customer retention rates by just 5% can increase profits by between 25% and 95%. (Bain and Company)
How can you lessen customer loss?
One of the most effective ways is to make your customers more sticky. Printing companies that have lots of sticky customers can spend more time growing their business and less time trying to replace lost customers.
Printing companies that do not have sticky customers will be spending a lot more time on new sales. They will also have less opportunity to build relationships with their current clients because of all the sales work that they have to do.
What is a sticky customer?
A sticky customer is one that is going to find it hard to move from you. You have become a part of their ecosystem. For these customers, changing print suppliers does not mean just sending a pdf to a new e-mail address. Instead, it means disconnecting systems and reconnecting them to new vendors. There has to be a really good reason to change supplier to justify the work involved in doing this.
Sticky customers may be stuck to you because you manage their data or provide a part of their ordering or fulfilment system. Changing systems is time consuming and expensive. People do not want to move from their supplier unless they have to.
Look out for my next article: I’ll help you run a test to see if a customer is sticky or not.
How do you create the right sales message for a sticky customer?
Check out How To Stop Print Buyers Choosing On Price – it outlines a simple three-step process that maximizes your chances of winning profitable new clients
PS Test out how effective your sales people are at selling print sales
Download my free e-book “Ten Common Print Selling Errors and What To Do About Them” right now at https://profitableprintrelationships.com/e-book/ You’ll also receive my regular “Views from the print buyer” bulletin, full of ideas on how to sell print effectively. It’s free and you can unsubscribe at any time.
The preceding content was provided by a contributor unaffiliated with Printing Impressions. The views expressed within may not directly reflect the thoughts or opinions of the staff of Printing Impressions.
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- Business Management - Marketing/Sales
Many printing companies are frustrated how hard it is to engage buyers in today’s world. That’s where Matthew Parker can help. He is a gamekeeper turned poacher. Parker has bought print for more than 20 years and received over 1,400 print sales pitches. He now uses his buyer’s point of view to give practical advice to printers. He helps them engage with prospects and customers to create profitable relationships.
Download his free e-book, "Ten Common Print Selling Errors And What To Do About Them" and check out his recently launched book, "How To Succeed At Print Sales: Setting targets, planning the right activities and making sure goals are met."
