If you want customers to return to your business again and again, it's important that you learn to read your customer base and understand what you offer the market. Why would people choose your place of business over others? Customers return to businesses for one, and hopefully more, of three basic reasons:  The perception that your business offers a deal. The perception that your business offers a service or product that they can't get elsewhere. The perception that your business treats its customers well. Learning to market yourself appropriately and tailor your business to a customer base requires a certain amount of harsh honesty and self-evaluation. Businesses that come off as having identity crises, or an inflated sense of their product are unlikely to succeed. Do you need to modernize? Do you need to stay consistent to avoid losing customers who like your vintage flair? It depends on you and your business.  If you're selling proverbial popsicles in a proverbial Antarctica, it's important to acknowledge that as a challenge that you need to overcome in your business strategy. How can you adapt to develop a more marketable product, or find the market for the product you already make? Compare your product with the competition, and scout them. Putting up a sign that says, "Best coffee in town!" is one thing, but how does your coffee compare with the coffee across town, really? If it really is the best in town, price it accordingly. If not, you need to market it based on value. Most people will try anything once. But to go back, the product or service needs to be especially good, and the customer needs to be sure it will be the same day in and day out. The quality of your service and the value of your offering is far more important than any other aspect of your business. Simply put, customers must like and know they can trust your product, or they will not buy it again, no matter how attentive your staff, no matter how clean your store, and no matter how cheap the product. Establish strict quality standards and implement ways to keep those standards in place. If you make food, the sandwich needs to be the same on Monday as on Friday, if an experienced employee is making it, or a new worker. For any growing business, it's important to do first-hand research into your customers likes and dislikes in regard to your business. Provide feedback cards or e-mail customers to learn about how your business is succeeding, and how it could improve.  Maintain customer complaint records to provide an accurate measure of the types of issues that arise, frequency of complaints and feedback received. In some instances complaints may decrease as the product or service improves. If complaints about the same issues come up again and again, then it is time to brainstorm and experiment with methods to further improve the business. These days, business sink or swim based on what people are saying on Yelp and other social networking platforms, especially in larger cities where the competition is increasingly fierce. You may think you're doing everything you can to appeal to customers, but don't ignore your reputation online. Join in and connect with customers, and learn from their more anonymous feedback.  Business that hope to succeed must have a functional and professional website. Your website should make people feel like they absolutely need to have your product or service, and provide basic information about your hours and products. Don't write fake reviews, however strong the temptation may be. If people are saying bad things about your business online, that's your fault. Make changes to your business instead. Different businesses will need to follow their customers, not any generalized rules for retaining customers. A gluten-free speciality bakery in Los Angeles needs to follow entirely different standards and practices than a road-side diner in Montgomery, AL, because the customer base will have entirely different expectations, standards, and interests.  If you offer a high-end product or a specialty service–something that appeals to a smaller niche market–you have to make sure your business is located somewhere with a high concentration of that market, or a way of attracting it. The quality of your product and the value for money will be the most important part of retaining customers. If you offer a product with wide appeal, something available at more than one place, then your marketability, your consistency, and your customer service will be the most important parts of your customer retention.
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