How to Lose a Customer for Life

(Note: If you have corresponded with me and are expecting a reply, please try again. My hard drive failed last week and I have not been able to resuscitate it to date. It had all my contacts and emails on it. I'll keep trying as failure is not an option in my opinion, but it may require patience on your part and mine.)

How to Lose a Customer for Life - Good Customer Service Is Not Optional

Unfortunately, customers, clients and collectors don't grow on trees in the back yard. Instead they are expensive and difficult to attain for the tiniest one-person business up to the largest multi-national conglomerate. Regardless of size they are the lifeblood of every business.

Artists and publishers can find information here and in my book about how to find customers, it's called marketing. Additionally, there is a plethora of art marketing advice available from a wide array of providers on the subject, including books, magazines, blogs, Web sites and consultants. Nearly all of it is aimed at how to capture new business. Don't let the preponderance of information about getting new customers lull you into thinking keeping existing ones is less important. It is the opposite.

Keeping customers is more important than finding new ones.

The conversion of a prospect into a customer begins a nourishing, nurturing process. Here is a simple truism: Companies that are successful at customer care will flourish while those that do not will not. Investing to keep a customer happy is far less expensive than the cost of acquiring new ones. There is a break-even point where having a customer becomes profitable. When a business frequently sells to repeat customers, its profit margins grow dramatically as the cost of the customer acquisition is amortized over multiple transactions.

The following is an example of an easy way to lose a customer for life.