Your priority as a franchisee is to persuade your customers to hand over their money…and more importantly to carry on doing so. With that in mind, it’s astonishing how little some franchisees know about their customers. After all, they’re the bedrock of your business and you’ll save both time and money making repeat sales rather than fighting to win new business.

Building a successful franchise means looking after your customers and making them feel at the heart of your business. This essentially boils down to two things – customer research and customer relations.

Talking and listening to your customers is key. Researching attitudes to your products or services will help identify problem areas as well as potential solutions. Customer research might even highlight areas for future product development, but, never expect your clients to come up with all of your ideas.

Effective customer relations can make your customers feel valued and more likely to use you over and above a competitor. While they can’t afford to ignore the price and quality of your goods or services, faced with a choice between similar products, time and time again consumers will pick the organisations they trust the most.

Effective customer relations encourages your customer to feedback on their experiences. Franchises and other small businesses can win a trick over their high street competitors by using size to their advantage. Today’s consumers expect a polite and efficient service, but, being small allows you to get closer and offer them a truly personal approach. Encourage your staff to listen properly to what your customers are saying and to tailor your service accordingly.

What many businesses fail to realise, is that customer loyalty cannot be bought. Loyalty is about being devoted to your best customers and it needs to be earned – and the starting point is in the front line of the business, with your staff. The relationship between the customer and employee sets the foundation for repeat business, so it is hard to underestimate the importance of hiring the staff who will be able to attract customers. It’s important to recruit staff with a positive attitude – after all, skills can be learnt, but attitudes are hard to change.

Consumers are hungry for trust and they will be looking out for sound business practices and ethics. It’s also true that people will often pay a small premium to deal with people – or to buy a product or service, they trust. If you’re interested in keeping hold of the customers you’ve got, you should stay in touch with them, make them feel special and learn what it is that will keep them coming back.

Richard offers the following advice on how new and seasoned franchisees can hang onto their customers...

1. Empathise – listen and respond to your customers appropriately. Try not to rely on scripts which can make customers feel like little more than a number

2. Stand out from the crowd – provide a memorable service and watch your company rocket up customers’ preferred list of suppliers

3. Stay in touch – if you haven’t heard from certain customers in a while, pick up the phone. Remind them that you’re still there and use the opportunity to find out about their current needs

4. Customer loyalty – consider incentive schemes to reward and encourage repeat orders and offer one-off gestures to your best customers

5. Are you being served? – relationships shouldn’t end at the cash register. Follow up with customers after a sale and learn more about what you did well and also where you fell down

6. Excellence every time – complacency is a killer so never forget that your customers have a choice

7. Famous or infamous – never rely solely on the reputation of your franchise. A name above the door is no substitute for a quality service

8. Under the microscope – sales figures and customer behaviour can highlight changes to the market. Stay one step ahead by watching your customers and understanding changing patterns

9. Hold up your hands – unfortunately, things do go wrong. Encourage your team to learn from the business’s mistakes by listening to customer reaction

10. Word of mouth – sadly, customers are more likely to mention your franchise after things have gone wrong. Nip problems in the bud and give those customers reasons to tell their own contacts how well you resolved the issue