Article: Customers like shopping and being recognized or remembered for what they like. Even if another place has a better product, some customers are willing to shop at places they're treated better. Learn your customers names and greet them. Customers like to feel like they are important and something as simple as knowing their name or what specific product they like can make all the difference in how often they choose to return to your business. There are no "small" customers. Treat everyone who walks in the store as if they're about to drop a thousand bucks on your top shelf goods, then turn around and do it again. Then work on making that true. to repeat customers in order to make them feel like they are a value to your business. A rewards program or discount for regular customers can be an excellent way to retain customers. When customers come into your store, find some way to get them to sign up for a mailing list, to keep them aware of special sales, deals, and promotions, on a semi-regular basis. Customers are more likely to return if you give them a specific reason to come back. It's also good to advertise your social networking pages, asking customers to "like" or "friend" your page. This can be a great way of keeping in touch. One of the worst mistakes that a business can make is doing the opposite, and you can do a lot by striving to exceed people's expectations of what's to come. Don't make your product sound like something your customer can't do without if you know it's cheap and unreliable. You'll never retain a customer that way, even if you're friendly and your store is clean. If you know your tamales are better than any tamales in town, you don't have to say "Best tamales in town." Let them speak for themselves. Price them at a reasonable profit margin and sell them regularly for a discount to get the word out. If people know they can get a good deal and good quality, you'll be in business. It's increasingly common for employees to be at one or the other end of an extreme. In some stores, employees are all aloof, ignoring the customers completely and texting or talking among themselves. In other stores, employees leech onto the customers and refuse to leave them alone. Customers dislike both. Train your employees to be "on" at all times, but also with the ability to be genuine and learn to back off. Employees also need to be well groomed and present themselves in a clean, attractive way while they're at work. Maintain a dress code of some kind at your place of business, appropriate to your product or service. Abercrombie & Fitch recently came under fire for giving preference to thin, white employees. If you want to keep your customers coming back, represent all types of people in your workforce. One excellent and underutilized way to retain customers and attract new customers is to hook up with complementary business, or nearby business who offer a different service to a similar customer base, and cross promote. Put up flyers or ads for a vintage clothes store in your laundromat, or sell a local bakery's goods in your coffee shop, in exchange for them selling your coffee at theirs. While a crowd of people plugged into laptops may not seem like the most attractive customer base, an increase in online freelance work, especially in larger cities, means that a huge segment of the workforce is looking for a place to sit and use Wi-Fi. If you run a restaurant or other place where customers congregate, establishing a policy for Wi-Fi is a great way to bring customers back. One of the problems with Wi-Fi is that sometimes customers will buy one cheap thing and sit there for six hours, taking up a space that you could turn over to new customers. Come up with a timed policy about the Wi-Fi to make it work of you.

What is a summary?
Form real relationships with your customers. Offer a special financial incentive for repeat business. Keep an email or SMS list. Under promise and over-deliver. Make sure your employees present themselves professionally. Cross-promote your business with complementary businesses. Provide free Wi-Fi.