Existing customers are the most proven, profitable source of revenue growth. But you can’t just take them for granted. It requires strategic efforts to continually increase sales from your current base.
This guide reveals 7 researched tactics to unlock more value from existing relationships. You’ll learn how to optimize the entire customer journey to drive loyalty, frequency, retention and bigger order values from your best advocates.
Let’s explore actionable ways to turn customers into recurrent revenue engines!
Understand Your Existing Customers
Getting a firm grasp on who your current customers are and what they want is a crucial first step to increasing sales. By analyzing past purchasing patterns, soliciting direct feedback, and reviewing interactions, you gain invaluable insights into how to better serve your existing clients.
Look at purchase history and patterns
Your current sales data holds the key to identifying potential opportunities with established customers. By segmenting and analyzing records of past transactions, you can pinpoint ideal targets for repeat business.
Identify best customers based on frequency, recency, and amount of purchases
Not all customers are equal when it comes to generating revenue. The Pareto principle states that roughly 80% of your sales come from the top 20% of buyers. To determine who your elite existing customers are, look at:
- Frequency – How often do they purchase? Frequent buyers have exhibited a habit of reordering from you regularly.
- Recency – How recent was their last purchase? Fresh transactions indicate active interest in your brand.
- Amount spent – What is their average order value? Big spenders offer more revenue potential per sale.
By combining these factors, you can segment and target the cream of the crop among your current customers. These VIPs merit specialized attention and incentives to maintain their invaluable loyalty.
See which products/services they use the most
Analyze what specific offerings your best customers are buying. This reveals the core products and services resonating with your audience. You likely have significant opportunities to promote expanded usage in those areas.
For example, a SaaS company could see that their analytics module has a high utilization rate among profitable accounts. They would then know to highlight expanded analytics offerings to those customers.
Send surveys and feedback forms
Online surveys and feedback forms provide a direct pipeline to gather insights from customers in their own words. They reveal satisfaction levels, needs, and pain points you may not have been aware of.
Ask about satisfaction with products, service, etc.
Gauge overall satisfaction with core offerings by directly asking customers:
- How satisfied are they with product performance and capabilities?
- How does their experience with service and support measure up to expectations?
- How likely are they to recommend you to colleagues or friends?
- What would they like to see improved or added to offerings?
Quantitative ratings let you benchmark satisfaction. Open-ended comments highlight areas working well versus potential weaknesses.
Inquire about additional needs or pain points
Look for incremental growth opportunities by identifying customer needs beyond your existing relationships. Ask:
- What challenges are they still facing in their day-to-day work?
- How could you help make their jobs easier or workflows more efficient?
- Are there any related products/services they wish you offered to fully solve their issues?
Their responses reveal chances to provide added value. Addressing known pain points through expanded offerings tailored to current customers can drive significant added sales.
Review customer service interactions
Your sales team isn’t the only source of insights on customers. Customer service agents speaking directly with them daily gain invaluable perspectives.
Identify common complaints, requests, issues
Review tickets, call transcripts, and recorded interactions to detect trends. Look for any widespread complaints, frequent feature requests, or common issues impacting the client experience.
These present areas to target improvements and upgrades that can boost retention and increase loyalty. Even small fixes addressing frequent pain points can yield big returns by enhancing advocacy.
Look for opportunities to improve experiences
Drill into individual issues to identify what didn’t meet customer expectations. Analyze if shortcomings were due to:
- Product limitations that upgrades could address
- Process breakdowns that added friction
- Misguided policies that need revisiting
Making it easy for customers to do business with you – guided by direct feedback – is crucial to driving repeat sales.
Getting inside the minds of your current customers provides a goldmine of insights to inform sales strategies. By diligently analyzing their past interactions and soliciting direct input, you gain a clear roadmap to tailoring offerings that incrementally grow your business from your existing audience.
Offer Loyalty & Referral Programs
Loyalty and referral programs create compelling incentives that reward existing customers for their continued business. By structuring perks, points, and bonuses, you can drive higher repeat purchase rates and advocacy.
Create a formal loyalty program
Implementing a structured loyalty program builds an engaging motivator for purchasing again and again. Customers will put in conscious effort to earn and maximize perks.
Offer points, rewards, discounts for repeat purchases
A classic approach is assigning points for every dollar spent, then letting customers redeem those points for rewards, discounts, or gift cards. This gives customers milestones to hit that directly translate to saving money.
Tailor tiered bonuses to incentivize higher purchase amounts. For example, offer:
- 5 points per $1 spent
- 7 points per $1 if over $200 in a month
- 10 points per $1 if over $500 in a month
This incremental system pushes customers to increase order sizes to reach the next loyalty status level and its boosted rewards.
Provide VIP access, special perks for top customers
Sweeten loyalty programs by making your best customers feel like VIPs with exclusive privileges, such as:
- Expedited shipping or members-only checkout lanes
- First access to new products and promotions
- Special members-only offers, content, or events
- Enhanced support via priority phone queues or dedicated reps
- Free merchandise, gifts, or upgrades on milestones
These meaningful perks make your brand more indispensable, driving emotional connection beyond monetary incentives alone.
Offer referral bonuses or discounts
Encouraging referrals from satisfied customers enables word-of-mouth growth. They serve as credible advocates selling on your behalf to new prospects.
Give existing customers incentives to refer friends
Promotions like “refer a friend to get 20% off” or rewards for successful referrals give customers a tangible stake in sharing your brand.
To maximize motivation, make it simple for them by providing links, promo codes, email templates, social posts, etc. to activate their network with ease.
Track referrals so customers feel valued for them
When designing a program, capture referral data and attribute sales to the advocates responsible. Follow up with them to express thanks and provide updates on their earned rewards.
Showing you honor their efforts provides positive reinforcement to keep referrals coming. No one wants to advocate into a black hole without acknowledgment.
Loyalty programs and referrals are powerful tools to increase repeat business from customers invested in your brand. The more delighted and valued you make advocates feel, the more profitable growth they will drive.
Improve Retention & Reduce Churn
Keeping existing customers actively engaged with your brand is crucial for ongoing sales. By being proactive about satisfaction, streamlining reorders, and promoting subscriptions, you build loyalty that minimizes churn.
Follow up regularly after purchases
Checking in with customers shows you care about their experience beyond the initial transaction. It also allows you to address any issues promptly before they churn.
Email, call, or survey customers to ensure satisfaction
Reach out a few days or weeks after purchase to ask:
- Are they satisfied with their purchase?
- Did everything work as expected?
- Do they need any assistance?
This gives them an avenue to provide feedback or ask questions while the experience is still fresh.
Follow up again later, such as a month or two afterwards, to check on ongoing satisfaction. This recurring cycle repeatedly engages them.
Be proactive about addressing issues or concerns
If a customer does indicate dissatisfaction, apologize sincerely and take ownership of fixing it. Turn problems into an opportunity to provide awesome service by:
- Resolving complaints speedily
- Sending replacements or issuing refunds without hassle
- Following up to confirm the resolution met their needs
Your goal is to make them smile again to rebuild loyalty, not just address a transactional issue.
Make it easy for customers to reorder
The more frictionless you make repurchasing, the more sales from existing customers you will drive.
Send email reminders to reorder essentials
If you sell products that get used up and replaced regularly, send reminder emails when it’s about time to reorder.
Tailor messaging to their specific usage history. “Looks like you’re due for more printer toner based on your past 3 months of orders from us. We’ve got you covered!”
Provide quick ordering options for frequent purchases
For popular reorders, add options like:
- One-click reorder buttons
- Saved preferences or bundles
- Subscriptions or auto-delivery
- Shortcut reorder codes to use by email or phone
Making re-upping effortless increases retention and frequency.
Highlight subscriptions and memberships
Recurring subscription models ensure ongoing sales. Promote these programs prominently along with their benefits.
If applicable, promote recurring purchase options
Many businesses can structure offerings as subscriptions – think razors, clothes boxes, software, etc.
Highlight these clearly on-site, in post-purchase emails, on packaging, and via outreach. “Love our razors? Save 20% and get new blades automatically shipped every month with our subscription.”
Make it easy to sign up and manage subscriptions
Provide simple enrollment options and account dashboards to view status. Support easy changes like pausing or cancelling too – you want customers feeling in control.
Reducing friction and churn starts well before a customer considers leaving. Proactive service, reorder convenience, and subscriptions build devotion that maintains sales.
Increase Purchase Frequency
The more often you can get existing customers to purchase, the faster your revenue grows. Use targeted promotions, bulk incentives, and loyalty programs to drive repeat business.
Send promotions and offers for repeat purchases
Limited-time promotions prompt customers to buy again soon before an offer expires. Sweetening the deal gets attention.
Target customers who haven’t purchased lately
Segment your list based on recency. Identify those who haven’t bought for 1-3 months but have history of 2+ purchases over 6+ months.
Craft an email campaign like:
“We haven’t seen an order from you recently and want to offer 15% off your next purchase this month! Use code COMEBACK15 at checkout.”
This nudges them to re-engage while positioning it as appreciation rather than desperation.
Time promotions around expected reorder cycles
Study historical frequency patterns across customer cohorts. If the average appears to be reordering every 2 months, plan a promotion to deploy 6 weeks after each purchase.
You want new incentives hitting inboxes around the time the next order is getting top of mind. This propels them to buy sooner.
Offer bulk order discounts
Getting customers to purchase higher quantities boosts order value. Bulk discounts increase the appeal of stocking up.
Structure promotions like:
- 10% off any order with 3+ items
- 15% off any order with 5+ items
- 25% off any order with 10+ items
The deeper the bulk discount, the greater the incentive to spend more per order.
Launch loyalty programs with incentives
Loyalty programs rewarding frequent purchases can rapidly increase order frequency.
Reward frequent purchases with points or status
Structure tiers based on monthly or annual order frequency, such as:
- 5+ orders per year = Silver status
- 10+ orders per year = Gold status
- 20+ orders per year = Platinum status
Associate rising status levels with increasing rewards, discounts, and VIP access.
This engages customers to actively monitor their status and push themselves to the next loyalty level through more frequent purchases.
Driving existing customers to buy again and again takes creativity and personalization in promotions, offers, and loyalty programs. The more you make them feel special, appreciated, and catered to, the higher you can push purchase frequency.
Upsell & Cross-sell Existing Customers
Expanding what customers buy each transaction boosts order values. Leverage purchase history insights, expanded education, and bundled offers to unlock more wallet share.
Make recommendations based on purchase history
You can utilize transaction data to suggest relevant add-ons tailored to each customer.
Use email, site banners, etc. to suggest relevant add-ons
When they view a product page they’ve purchased before, prompt them:
“Customers who bought this also added X, Y, and Z to their cart – check them out!”
In post-purchase emails, highlight accessories that naturally pair well as follow-on sales.
Promote upgraded versions or enhanced features
If a customer has bought the basic version of a product in the past, reach out to pitch the advantages of upgrading to the next level.
“You’ve used our Core Word Processor for 2 years now. Our new Pro version includes templates, analytics, publishing tools, and more. Try it today!”
This gets existing satisfied customers inquiring about enhancements they could benefit from.
Educate customers on products they haven’t tried yet
Expand awareness of your full catalog so customers buy beyond their historical categories.
Target categories or products they have shown interest in
Segment customers based on what they’ve browsed and purchased before. Show them complementary products from those divisions:
- A fashion customer gets apparel recommendations.
- A electronics customer gets promotions for accessories and gadgets.
Tailoring expands relevance versus one-size-fits-all offers.
Offer bundled packages or deals
Bundling multiple products into a discounted package makes it easy for customers to add more to each order.
Incentivize adding new items to existing purchases
If someone is buying razors, prompt them to “Add a 6 month supply of blades for 20% off”.
Make it simple for them to purchase logical companion products versus needing to re-shop later.
Leveraging data on past engagement coupled with strategic discounts, recommendations, and bundles gives you high-potential opportunities to expand wallet share from existing customers.
Provide Exceptional Service
Delivering outstanding service cements loyalty and satisfaction. By resolving issues promptly, proactively gathering feedback, and showing appreciation, you make customers feel valued.
Resolve complaints and issues quickly and effectively
Addressing problems with care and speed transforms dissatisfaction into delight.
Empower staff to address problems for customers
Train support and service teams to handle complaints with authority. They should be able to:
- Offer credits, refunds, or replacements as warranted
- Waive fees or extend trials to compensate issues
- Expedite shipping on replacements and fixes
Empowered reps can solve problems immediately, delighting customers.
Follow up afterwards to ensure satisfaction
After a complaint is resolved, have the rep follow up personally to confirm:
- Was the solution satisfactory?
- Is there anything else they can do?
- Are they still fully confident in your brand?
This extra step signals you aim to maximize relationships beyond transactions.
Actively gather customer feedback
Continuously collecting and analyzing insights from current clients keeps your finger on the pulse.
Make it easy to submit reviews, testimonials, referrals
Add review collection forms across touchpoints like:
- Post-purchase emails
- User account portals
- Receipts and packaging
- Retargeting ads
The richer your first-party review assets become over time, the more they build trust with prospects.
Ask customers directly for feedback via surveys, emails, etc.
Send occasional short surveys on overall satisfaction levels and suggestions for improvements. Segment out top tiers of customers for added one-on-one outreach.
This two-pronged approach combines broad data gathering with deeper VIP relationships.
Show appreciation for loyal customers
Recognizing tenure and referring others is a powerful loyalty driver.
Send thank you notes or small gifts to VIPs
Surprise repeat or high-value customers periodically with small tokens of appreciation like:
- Handwritten thank-you notes
- Discount codes or bonus credits
- Free samples of new products
- Upgraded shipping
These unexpected delights spark smiles and discussion.
Celebrate anniversaries and milestones
Mark special occasions like customer sign-up anniversaries or referral thresholds hit. Send an email such as:
“You’ve been part of our family for 5 years now! Thank you for your continued support – please enjoy this coupon for 20% off.”
Rewarding loyalty strengthens bonds and advocacy.
Exceptional service values customers as partners, not transactions. This mentality powers legions of vocal fans bolstering your brand.
Optimize Your Website for Existing Customers
Your website is a crucial touchpoint for nurturing existing relationships. By featuring social proof, using targeted messaging, and highlighting loyalty perks across the site, you reinforce bonds with current advocates.
Feature reviews, testimonials, and case studies
Sprinkling validated social proof across your site builds trust and credibility for new visitors. For existing customers, it reminds them why they love you.
Validate quality and trust for prospects
Testimonials with specific detail on how you solved problems and delighted customers help convince visitors to become buyers.
Case studies telling your success stories establish you as an authority and trusted advisor.
Remind existing customers of what they appreciate
Seeing reviews highlight aspects they enjoy reassures current customers they made the right choice. It subconsciously reinforces satisfaction.
Reviews in particular areas like support and service reinforce those competencies.
Ensure website copy speaks to current customers
While attracting new prospects, don’t forget the language that resonates with existing fans.
Use language that resonates with satisfied clients
Pay attention to words and phrases customers use in reviews, testimonials and conversations. Incorporate those into copy across the site.
This shows you speak their language – enhancing belonging and approachability.
Address common use cases and pain points
Feature copy, FAQs, and documentation tailored to current client needs showcases you understand (and can solve) their daily challenges.
Outlining best practices for implementation guides them to ideal outcomes.
Dedicate a section of site to existing customer perks
Spotlighting special offers and loyalty programs reminds customers of exclusive access and value.
Highlight loyalty programs, special offers, etc.
Give ongoing promotions prominent visibility with dedicated landing pages, banners across site, sections in account portals, etc.
Make joining loyalty programs and subscriptions seamless from multiple touchpoints.
Create exclusive content for valued customers
Consider webinars, guides, or virtual events open only to top-tier purchasers.
Gated thought leadership content establishes elite status.
Website optimization demonstrates commitment to customers as the core of your business. They will reward you with increased loyalty, advocacy and purchases in return.
Key Takeaways
Here are the most crucial lessons for increasing sales from your existing customers:
- Understand their purchase history – Analyze past transactions to identify your best customers and most popular products. This reveals prime targets for repeat sales.
- Actively request feedback – Use surveys, reviews and service call analysis to identify satisfaction levels, needs and pain points. Address these in enhancements and offers.
- Offer loyalty programs – Perks and rewards incentivize repeat purchases. Make top customers feel valued through VIP access and bonuses.
- Reduce churn – Follow up post-purchase to ensure satisfaction. Make reordering and subscriptions frictionless. Outstanding service earns loyalty.
- Increase frequency – Send time-bound promotions and bulk order discounts. Loyalty programs drive more regular purchasing.
- Upsell / Cross-sell – Use history and bundles to increase order values. Expanding wallet share boosts revenue.
- Deliver exceptional service – Empower quick issue resolution and gather feedback. Recognize tenure and show customer appreciation.
- Optimize website – Feature case studies and testimonials. Dedicate sections to customer programs and offers.
The more you tailor the entire customer journey to demonstrating value and appreciation, the greater the sales growth from your existing base.
Frequently Asked Questions
How can I identify my best customers?
Analyze your customer database based on recency, frequency and monetary value of purchases. Segment your top 20% of customers contributing around 80% of revenue for priority upsell targeting.
What are some good loyalty program rewards?
Points or status levels for repeat purchases, discounts, free gifts, expedited shipping, free samples, access to vip content and webinars, dedicated account reps, and early access to sales and new products.
When should I send customers repeat purchase promotions?
Target customers who haven’t purchased in 1-3 months with time-bound offers. Also time promotions around expected re-order cycles based on average purchase frequency.
How can I make it easier for customers to reorder?
Offer one-click reorder buttons, saved preference profiles, reminder emails when it’s time to replenish, and easy repeat order codes.
What are some good strategies to increase order size?
Suggest relevant add-ons based on past purchases, offer customers upgraded versions, educate them on new offerings, create bundled packages, and provide bulk order discounts.
How can I reduce customer churn?
Follow up after purchases to ensure satisfaction. Address issues promptly and thoroughly. Make subscriptions and reordering simple. Surprise customers periodically with small tokens of appreciation.
Why is gathering customer feedback important?
Direct insights into needs, satisfaction levels, and suggested improvements should guide your product enhancements and promotions. This customer-driven approach breeds loyalty.
How can I optimize my site for existing customers?
Feature case studies, reviews and testimonials to build credibility and remind them why they are customers. Dedicate sections to loyalty perks, special offers and gated content.
What are the best practices in customer service?
Empower your team to resolve complaints swiftly. Follow up to confirm issues are fully addressed. Actively request feedback. Celebrate customer milestones. Aim to maximize relationships, not just transactions.