How to get repeat business from past customers (without a newsletter)

Ask most small business owners where their next job will come from and they will talk about advertising, a new website, or getting found on Google. Ask them where their last ten jobs came from and the honest answer is usually different: someone they had worked for before, or someone those people sent.

Past customers are the cheapest work you will ever win. They already trust you, they already know your prices, and there is nobody else quoting. And yet almost nobody has a system for going back to them. This guide is that system. It needs no newsletter, no marketing software and about ten minutes a week.

Why it works, and why nobody does it

A new enquiry has to find you, compare you, and decide to trust you. A past customer has done all three. What stops them coming back is rarely that they were unhappy. It is that they forgot, or that they did not know you also did the other thing they now need, or that someone else happened to be in front of them on the day.

The reason it does not happen is that there is nothing to prompt it. New enquiries shout: the phone rings, the email arrives. Past customers are silent. If nothing in your week says "you have not spoken to Grace since January", you will not think of Grace.

Step 1: decide who is worth keeping in touch with

Not everyone. Go through the last two years of customers and mark the ones where at least one of these is true:

The work repeats. Servicing, annual accounts, seasonal jobs, school photos, a garden that keeps growing.
They could need something else you do. You fitted the kitchen; you also do bathrooms.
They know people like them. Landlords know landlords. Parents at one nursery know every other parent.
They were a pleasure to work for. This matters more than it sounds. You will actually make the call.

For a typical one-person business this is thirty to a hundred people. That is the list.

Step 2: give every one of them a next date

The whole system is one rule: nobody on the list is ever without a next contact date. When you finish a job, before you close the file, decide when you will next be in touch and write it down.

The right gap depends on the work:

Kind of customer	Sensible gap
Annual service, renewal, yearly accounts	11 months, so you arrive before they start looking
Seasonal work	A month before the season
One-off job, could lead to another	6 months
Good referrer	3 to 4 months
Big or regular client	Monthly or quarterly

Eleven months rather than twelve is deliberate. The reminder that arrives a week after they have booked someone else is worth nothing.

If the gap repeats, make the reminder repeat, so that finishing this year's books next year's without you having to remember.

Step 3: have a reason that is not "just checking in"

The message that gets ignored is "just touching base". The message that gets a reply has a reason in it. Any of these is enough:

A date. "Your boiler service is due next month. I have the 14th or the 21st free."
A change. "We have started doing … and I thought of you."
Something you noticed. "I drove past last week and the hedge is about ready for its second cut."
A result. "How has the new till system been over the summer?"
A thank-you. "Tom mentioned you recommended me. Thank you, that means a lot."

Keep it to two or three sentences, from your own phone or email, in your own voice. That is the advantage a small business has over a big one, and an automated newsletter throws it away.

Step 4: ten minutes a week

Pick a fixed slot. Friday after lunch works for a lot of people. Look at two things:

Who is due this week. Send those messages. Most take a minute each.
Who has gone quiet. Anyone you have not spoken to in six months who has nothing booked. Either book a date or decide they are off the list.

After each one, log a line about what was said and set the next date. It is the log that makes the next message easy: "Last time you mentioned you were thinking about the loft."

What it looks like in practice

A photographer who shoots newborns notes the birthday and sets a reminder for eleven months later. The message writes itself: "He must be nearly one. I have some cake-smash dates in March if you would like one." A heating engineer's customers all get an annual service reminder without anyone remembering anything. A bookkeeper checks in with quiet clients in February, before the year-end rush, rather than in April with everyone else.

None of it is clever. It is just a date against every name.

Doing it in a spreadsheet, and when to stop

You can run this in a spreadsheet with four columns: name, last contact, next contact, note. Sort by next contact every Friday. It works well up to about fifty people.

It starts to creak when you forget to open it, when the notes outgrow a cell, and when you want the reminder to find you rather than the other way round. At that point a small CRM does the same job with less effort: it shows who is due and who has gone quiet the moment you open it, books the repeat when you finish a follow-up, and keeps the conversation history on the person's page.

Whichever you use, the rule is the one thing that matters. Nobody worth keeping is ever without a next date.