'Why it pays to reward your customers'

The logic for this is unassailable. Marketing consultants will advise you it costs anything from five to seven times more to acquire a new customer than keep an existing one. According to some, reducing customer attrition by as little as 5% may result in an increased profit of between 25% and 125%.When times are thriving and sales are buoyant, it is often easier to fill gaps left by a departing client. There's also not as much of free time to identify explanations why the former customer left or do anything to prevent it.

As ever, it takes a major slump like the current one to remind all businesses of the significance of caring for current relationships and keeping customers loyal. Tough times are already probably forcing your customers to ease expenditure and seek ways they may save. Creating a solid, trusting connection with them may lessen the chances of your business being top of the list of cost reductions.

Keeping up a regular, well informed dialogue helps retain customers. Discover what they want and how the service could be enhanced. To avert being intrusive, it's always prudent to ask them where and how they'd like to be approached and how frequently..

As soon as you grabbed their awareness, be willing to converse openly about everything that concerns them. Given the current predicament, this might encompass anything from the awkward matter of a possible cut in price to be alternative ways of working. But it could also highlight other areas of improvement unconnected to the recession, such as how well your sales and marketing people are performing or another way in which the customer's account could be handled.

Companies need to think differently if they are to emerge from this recession. Large or small, we're in this downturn together, so it makes common sense to operate in partnership with customers and suppliers to guarantee survival.

At Business Advsiory Accounting & Tax Services, for example, it's not just our direct customers that we take into account as associates but also the businesses which supply us with our hardware; software, stationery etc. We might pass on any useful information to them on managing the effects of the downturn, for example, and they to us. The benefits of  this are that we understand where they're coming from and what they're doing to decrease risk in a downturn, and vice versa.

While all this is happening, your service delivery must be be top knotch so work hard to keep up an superb customer experience with clients, new and old. Develop and improve every part of your offering from how you manage to the quality of your products or services.

By pulling out the stops to serve old customers, you'll not only keep them on board but they'll also spread the word about and facilitate you secure new ones. And don't overlook to reward them for their loyalty: smaller businesses may not be able to extend to the expense of a loyalty card system but there are various small gestures you may make to keep them contented.

Spending a small amount of money on your current clients now will be advisable in the longer term when this recession picks up.