Customer visit is a strange phenomenon where the context changes according to the industry. If this statement has confused you, here’s the explanation.
In industries that deal with product sales, such as retail and hospitality, the customer goes to the store or company. However, service businesses, such as branding agencies, turn the tables with the business visiting the customer.
But regardless of who visits whom, person to person meetings hold great value. You have more control over the situation and can ensure the customer completes the purchase instead of just browsing. So while this article’s main focus will be the first, it’ll also touch on the second one.
Therefore, if you want to make the most out of a customer visit, look no further. This article will guide you on how to convert it to a sale and what to do next.
When Insights Meet Handshakes: What Is the Importance of Customer Visits?
Before we progress toward how to make a customer visit successful, let’s understand its importance. The shopping scene merged with the digital world. Rarely will you ever find customers who haven’t already browsed the internet for what they want. But then why do they visit your venue?
Because they need a personalized experience that no amount of online forms can deliver, they will be able to explain their problem better with live conversations with you.
Moreover, they want to see your offerings for themselves before making a buying decision. On the other hand, they’ll have to wait with online browsing before determining whether they like what they ordered.
Furthermore, when customers visit your establishment, they end up spending more than they had initially intended. And to top everything off, online visits increase when venue visits increase. If, for some reason, you were unable to convert a customer during the visit, you can use their online stopover.
These are the small loopholes in digital experiences that you can exploit. Therefore, if you educate customers about your services when they’re visiting, your chances of a sale will increase substantially.
However, educating doesn’t mean giving them general advice. But rather, tell them how your offer fits their needs. This, in return, will create loyalty toward your business, especially if it is a small one. So without a shadow of a doubt, physical visits are priceless for the success of your sales and profit margins.
Request Without Requesting: How To Ask a Customer for a Visit?
While the advantages you learned earlier are remarkable, you won’t be able to experience them if nobody visits your establishment. So the burning question is, “How to ask a customer for a visit?”
The answer comes easy for businesses in certain industries, while is more complicated in others. Moreover, the right approach would depend on your consumer profile. However, there are strategies and techniques to get customer visits that work in any industry. So here are a few tips:
- Invest in social media ads and content. Create such a buzz around your brand that it becomes the talk of the town. However, don’t just create sales content. Instead, create a marketing strategy to provide value to your customers.
- Be proactive in replying to reviews and solving queries because customers pay close attention to how you handle problems.
- Launch loyalty programs and give discounts on live appearances. Customers want the best deal, so that discounts can do wonders.
- Come up with a unique selling point that nobody else has. It may be a unique ambiance, business model, etc.
Of course, you can hire an agency to promote you. But you’re better off doing it yourself if you’re a small business. And it’s not that hard. Just follow the mentioned principles, and you’re good to go.
Successful Customer Journey Funnel: How To Ensure a Customer Visit Becomes a Sale?
Have you ever heard of showrooming? It’s when people visit your venue to see your offerings live but then proceed to purchase the item online.
They compare your price to other brands and use various codes to get the best deal. But one thing’s for sure; you can’t avoid showrooming because 60% of consumers do it. While this practice may seem like wasting your time, you can make it work out in your favor. How? By converting the browsing to purchasing when the opportunity arises. The following tips will help you transform a customer visit in a sale.
Tip #1 for a Successful Customer Visit: Keep It in Stock To Avoid the Shock
When discussing these tips, we should also give regard to the customer because it’s not always just browsing. Sometimes, the customer enters your establishment with the mind of buying. But if their required item is not in your stock, it’s not their fault, right? In this case, switching to other brands is not only inevitable but justified as well.
The solution to this is simple. Just keep your inventory updated. And how about incorporating technology to take the burden off your shoulders? You can also make use of inventory management software to track items in your stock. In certain industries, artificial intelligence can take care of it. For example, AI for restaurants can update in real-time the demand for dishes and the stocks of ingredients available.
As soon as you notice low availability, order more of that item. But there’s a catch. If a particular product isn’t popular with your customers, you might have a hard time selling it. So it’s important to note what your customers demand from you before updating your inventory.
In this case, it would help if you have unique offerings. Speaking of that, let’s jump onto the next tip to convert a customer visit into a sale using uniqueness.
Tip #2 for a Successful Customer Visit: Stand Out Like a Unicorn in a Field of Horses
As mentioned earlier, you need to keep your offerings unique to stand out from the crowd. If others don’t have what you do, customers will have no choice but to buy it from you.
However, you must advertise that your product or service is distinctive. How will people know and avail it if you don’t tell them?
Now, it’s not always possible to come up with products and services that nobody else has. However, you can introduce special deals and bonuses that appeal to your customer’s interests.
Suppose you started a coffee shop and noticed many customers come to read or work in peace. Give exclusive discounts or a complimentary cookie to this audience and advertise it. This way, more people will feel the urge to read or work in your coffee shop, increasing foot traffic.
Also, who eats a cookie without coffee, especially in a coffee shop? So you end up making sales in return for a small investment.
Moreover, consider using QRcode marketing during customer visits. What you offer inside the QR code is up to you to make exclusive. Additionally, these pixelated squares are convenient, so nobody will have a hard time scanning them.
### Tip #3 For a Successful Customer Visit: Train Your Employees To Gain the Price
Another tip to convert a customer visit into a purchase is to train your sales people and staff. If this tip seems unrelated, here’s the clarification.
When customers arrive at your venue, your employees must pay close attention. Firstly, they might have a problem or a question. If they don’t find the answer quickly, you will have lost your chance of making a sale. That’s why, for example, the best restaurants also provide the best restaurant customer service. It is not a coincidence.
Many studies conclude that employee behavior has a direct relation to customer satisfaction. But it’s shocking how many employees aren’t willing to help customers. So you need to consider strategic customer engagement as a core part of the training you provide to your staff.
For example, if they find customers using their phones during visits, instruct them to spread awareness of your brand and offerings.
Imagine one of your employees sees a customer showrooming and comparing your offerings to others online. Train them to take advantage of this opportunity and walk up to the customers. Trained staff can help you increase your sales and provide a better customer experience.
Let’s wrap this list of tips to convert a customer visit into a sale with social logins. They allow customers to use their existing social media accounts to log in to your website or WiFi guest network.
When customers use social logins, you can access valuable information about them. This includes names, addresses, emails, phone numbers, likes, dislikes, etc. What else do you need to create a comprehensive customer profile?
Once you’ve made these handy personas, you can guide them back to your venue by getting personal with marketing campaigns. Such campaigns will bring the right message in front of your audience in ways that resonate with them.
Because as mentioned earlier, customers crave personalization. They don’t want a solution that fits the masses. They want to feel like you made your offering exclusively for them.
After taking this step, you will have customers returning to your venue and making purchases on repeat.
Gratefulness Pays Off: How Do You Thank a Customer After a Visit?
Once you’ve converted the customer visit into a sale, don’t forget to thank the customer. But how do you thank a customer after a visit?
- Address with the name: Conversations become more intimate when using your customers’ names. This gesture makes customers feel close to you and your brand, encouraging them to become loyal.
- Make it detailed: Don’t just say thank you for visiting or shopping. Make the note detailed and tell the customer why you enjoyed their visit. It may be because they’ve been regular customers for some time. Or because they gave you constructive feedback.
- Handwritten always wins: While vocal thank you’s will suffice, a handwritten comment card with the receipt makes all the difference. It shows your effort and means more to the customer.
- Include a small discount: Let’s say the customer didn’t use any deal during the visit. Give them one for the next visit when they’re leaving. This will increase the value of your thank you note.
Again, you must train your employees because you won’t always be available at the venue.
Nurture After Departure: What To Do After a Customer Visit?
If you think your work is complete after thanking the customers, prepare yourself for a surprise. Because you need to nurture your client relationship with updates after the customer visit.
Firstly, as mentioned earlier, focus on personalization. We can’t stress this enough, but tailored solutions are the key to a successful customer relationship. Send them emails about new offers but only on things they’ve shown interest in.
Secondly, after a client visit, consider giving them a shoutout on social media. You won’t believe how special customers feel when their favorite brand acknowledges them in front of the world. And if you accompany this shoutout with a giveaway, it’s the cherry on top.
And lastly, conduct surveys to get feedback about your offerings. Listen to them and improve your brand accordingly.
From Trekking to Tracking: How To Keep Track of Customer Visits?
Before we end this discussion about customer visits, there’s one last thing you need to know; tracking customer loyalty and visits. Because here’s the truth. If you don’t track them, how will you know how many were successful?
But you can’t keep an attendance register like a school where customers can call out “present.” So how to keep track of customer visits?
Firstly, you can use WiFi marketing solutions to track how many customers have logged in to your WiFi. However, not everyone will use your guest network. So, in that case, CRM software will be your companion. WiFi marketing software offers intuitive insights into your customers’ habits and needs. it can help you measure valuable metrics such as customer churn, CLV, customer effort score, and more. In other words, it helps you understand more about the people who visit your venue.
Alternatively, you can use person-counting sensors to track your venue’s foot traffic. So as you can see, technology’s role is inevitable in tracking visits.
Who Would You Sell to if Customers Don’t Visit You?
A customer visit is pivotal to your business’s success. No amount of online forms can help you know a customer better than live visits.
But these visits shouldn’t remain just visits. Instead, you must turn them into sales by keeping full stock, providing discounts, and uniqueness. If you want to improve your sales with accurate data about your customers and automated marketing campaigns, try Beambox.
Beambox is a WiFi marketing platform that can help you stand out in your market. With Beambox, you can automate marketing campaigns while securing the WiFi you offer guests. Moreover, it will help you grow your online ratings on online review platforms and manage your reputation. Start your free trial today and join other 12,000 venues using Beambox to grow!
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