Customer retention and recomendations

[james]

Are there any tips for retaining customers or getting your customers to recomend their friends?

This seems to me to be far cheaper than advertising.

[MarkP]

Its a great way to increase sales, few tips:
1. Some kind of customer loyalty scheme with discounts or points for purchases that add up to discounts.
2. Again referal schemes with rewards for customers who introduce new customers.

[Conscept]

I'd reccomend the referal system too, Give the customers a % of their signup fee if that is there. Or give them a reward such as points for doing so .. Every 5 points = x?
Or you can give customers points for them staying with your "Business" for a certain ammount of time.

[james]

Thank you for those ideas. My wife's (non-internet) business offers stepped discounts (10% for five advanced purchases, 20% for ten). She is trying to introduce a referral scheme, but that's hard to put in.

[surfville]

referral system is what you need. Because in online transaction it is hard to do loyalty based marketing strategy because you don't get to see you customer personally.