3 ways to keep clients coming back post-covid

As the world changed over the past two years, so did customer expectations. Alan Manly looks at three things you need to do to deliver in this new environment.

With covid slowly becoming an afterthought, most businesses are now fully open and trying to adapt to a new way of doing business.

The move toward digital grew exponentially in the past two years and now businesses are looking at the different ways they can keep customers coming back in this new marketplace.

Here are three ways businesses can entice their customers to keep coming back.

1. Know the customer

The entire covid experience was unusual from a business perspective in that the products didn’t change, it was the customer that changed and the way in which they interacted with the business. To ensure repeat business in a post-covid world, it’s going to be critical to understand what your customers experience when interacting with your company.

For businesses, they need to put most attention on the customers that have been forced to quickly adapt to a changing environment. I call these types of people digital immigrants. Consider your PT or group fitness client base for a moment and you’ll undoubtedly be able to identify those who fall into this category. For these customers to have continued dealings with a business may depend on how well it demonstrates that its staff have been empowered to use newly implemented digital tools. Well-trained staff will add a great deal of value.

For those businesses relying on going back to the way things used to be, this could sadly mark the end for them.

2. Forget tech for tech’s sake

The ultimate test for every business will not be in the technology itself, but rather how it is applied.

Booking, payment and engagement tools that don’t integrate smoothly with your website or online presence have the potential to hinder, rather than enhance, your client’s experience.

That means your customer experience (CX) which is everything related to a business that affects a customer’s perception and feelings about it, is more important than the actual technology itself.

The better the overall experience the more likely a customer is going to be to return.

3. Empower your team

In this new world of technology, the one thing that sits in the middle of the customer and the product, yet outside of technology, is the staff.

Just like customers have been forced to quickly adapt to a new world, so too have staff. Who would have thought that high-end restaurants would have changed to become takeaway venues or offer home delivery? Many businesses have been forced to change the way they do things and it’s important that they continue to embrace this flexibility.

Having a well-trained staff that is able to understand what the customer wants and needs and can deliver that for them across these new technological boundaries could be the difference between a customer for life and a one-off sale.

Empower and train staff to embrace this new economy and that will filter through to a better customer experience and ultimately a happier customer that keeps on coming back.

Alan Manly OAM

Alan is the CEO of Universal Business School Sydney (UBSS) and author of The Unlikely Entrepreneur. To find out more, visit ubss.edu.au.

• Bio

Network

Network is an education subscription service that offers a broad range of upskilling courses for fitness and wellness professionals. Established in 1987, Network has played a pivotal role in the continual evolution of the fitness industry.