Customer loyalty is the key to profitability. The reason is simple. It costs to acquire a new customer than to keep a current one. Without customer loyalty, customers leave. How are the ways to make customers loyal to your business?

1- Treat every customers with diligence

It is very important to know each customer. The more you know about your customers, the more effective your sales and marketing efforts will be. It’s well worth making the effort to find out who they are, what they buy and why they buy it.

2- Customer loyalty program

A company must implement a customer loyalty to reward customers who frequently make purchases. A loyalty program may give a customer advanced access to new products, special sales coupons or free merchandise.

3- Promotion

We know that shoppers love a discount or a coupon and that can help the company to increase its sale.  However the company should keep promotions short to prevent long-term damage to its overall pricing strategy.

4- Create a core competence

It is important for the company to have a reputation and brand recognition. Core competencies usually provides the best chance for a company's continued growth and survival, as these factors are what differentiate the company from competitors.

5- Increase involvement

Connection matters. How can you further involve your customers with your business? Think about holding special events, gatherings, contests – anything that increases involvement will strengthen those relationship.

Pierre-Luc Paquin is a Sage Certified Consultant Platinum level, Sage Certified Trainer, Sage Development Partner Silver level and founder of LG4– a consulting firm specializing in implementing accounting software. With more than 800 projects done, LG4 is the biggest partner of Sage solutions for small business.