I am a small business owner, but my work is project based and a one time thing for most clients. From the other side as a customer, I’ve stopped going to a business when they commented about not seeing me for a while. It’s one thing to say ‘hey, it’s great to see you again, how’s everything going with (insert earlier project/service)’ and another thing to say ‘you haven’t been here in a while, you should come in more often.’

Many small business owners rely on customer loyalty programs to encourage repeat business.

You could have a card-based VIP program that offers frequency discounts and special prices.

You could offer a subscription program. Pay one monthly price and get unlimited use.

And so forth.

As has been previously said, customers will return if you serve them well. I think the best way to do that is adopt a customer centric approach to your business and ideologies. Putting customers above profit (something not many business actually do) has many benefits.

If you serve your customers well they will return because they appreciates the service you provided.

I stopped going to small business because they keep pushing tipping on me. sometimes I feel they are mad at me for not tipping

for now I cook more at home.

Like everyone said them having a good experience is the key. But beyond just that you need to have follow up marketing campaigns. Coupons, specials, newsletters, social media. You have to stay top of mind once you have them in your funnel. I see ads for guys I emailed 8 months ago in my feeds and i. Automated emails still. I may not need them now but they made me know I was there.

I run socials and ads for an orthodontic clinic (I’m an ads specialist and they’re my monthly client). I built their strategy from the ground up and a large part of getting returning customers is consistently asking people how their experience was and what they think the business could improve on. If they give feedback, take it and improve. If they say everything was perfect, always ask for online reviews especially on Google and Facebook without missing a single person.

During my first consult with the owner, the clinic had like 0 reviews and had tons of slow days with literally 0 patients. Around 2 months after I set everything up, the business is up to almost 30 reviews on Facebook and 20 reviews on Google with a lot of return customers. Sure it’s not a lot but it’s much better than practically 0. The clinic also had close to 70 new patients in one month (25-30 patients for a small practice is already considered high performing.)

Just earlier today I had a chat with the owner and they told me people keep walking-in because of all the good reviews (they always ask how they found the clinic during intake.) They also keep having return patients who attribute their return to the great doctors and a lot of the time the great customer service.

When they first started asking every single patient how the experience was, they got a lot of honest feedback about things they could act on.

Offer great value to them. Is it service? Price? Speed? If you can offer a value that’s greater than your competitors you will have repeat customers. Getting the first set of customers is another battle.