A Repeat Client May Be Staying From Habit

Imagine a music teacher named Odile Marchetti who teaches piano to 22 children in her front room. Each September, she sends the families the dates for the new year. This September, 20 of the 22 sign up again, as most did the year before. Odile takes the count as proof that her families are happy.

Theo Lindqvist is one of the 20. He is 12, and he has come on Tuesdays at 4:30 since he was eight. His lessons follow the same graded books each year. At the spring recital, he plays a piece from the book. His mother pays each bill on the day it arrives.

In March, at the school gate, another mother mentions that her son’s teacher has him writing a short piece of his own. Mrs. Lindqvist cannot remember the last time Theo talked about his lessons. In four years, she has never given Odile’s name to anyone. The next September, Theo starts with the other teacher. When Odile asks why, Mrs. Lindqvist says, “Nothing was wrong. He’d just done the same books for four years, and this sounded fun.”

Suppose instead that Odile plans one new idea for each child who has been with her more than a year. She does it before she sends the September dates. Tuesday at 4:30 stays the same. At Theo’s first lesson of the year, she says, “For the spring recital, I’d like you to choose the piece yourself, anything you love. Would you like that?”

Theo chooses the theme from a film he has watched six times. He plays it for his grandfather at Christmas, and again at the spring recital. In March, the other mother mentions the teacher who has her son writing music. Mrs. Lindqvist tells her about the film theme. “Four years in, and Odile still surprises him,” she says. The friend asks for Odile’s number.

Theo signed up again that September in both versions, and Odile’s count looked just as healthy. In the first version, Mrs. Lindqvist stayed because nothing had made her think about it. The first teacher to offer something new took Theo away. In the second, she had a fresh reason to stay each year, and something to tell her friend.

So do not mistake a client who comes back for one who would choose you again. Here is why the two differ, how a designer keeps a long client interested, and where it goes wrong.

A customer who keeps buying may not be loyal

In 2003, Frederick Reichheld of Bain & Company wrote in Harvard Business Review about how companies measure loyalty. His article starts from a plain point. A customer who buys from the same company again and again may not be loyal to it. They may be held there by inertia, by indifference, or by what it would cost them to leave.

His example is a traveler who takes the same airline to one city only because it has the most flights there. So he warned that a count of returning customers says little about loyalty when leaving is hard. He and his colleagues tested survey questions against what about 4,000 consumers went on to do. Across industries, the question that best predicted what customers did was whether they would recommend the company to a friend or colleague.

Those were customers of large companies, and the step to your clients is the course’s own. Here is the step. A family that has used you for years knows your days and your ways. Leaving would mean finding someone new and teaching them all over again. So the family may stay for years without ever deciding to. That is why a count of returning clients can look better than the clients feel.

Staying also has good reasons, and they are why a client stays with you for years. A returning count cannot show you which reason is at work for each client. The course’s own test can. It is whether the client tells someone about you, and it matches Reichheld’s question. Mrs. Lindqvist paid every bill for four years and never passed on Odile’s name.

Habit holds a client only until something gives them a reason to think about you. That is the course’s view, and here is its reason. A client who stays from habit has never chosen to stay. So the first interesting offer from someone else is the first real choice they make about you.

A Miami designer finished a client’s 11th home and still brought something new

In 2022, Business of Home asked five designers about the challenges of working with a client again. Giselle Loor Sugerman, a designer in Miami, had just finished the 11th home for one client. Her firm has worked on that client’s homes “from Aspen to Washington, D.C.”

Her firm tries to bring something different to each one. “We always try to introduce something new into the design,” she said. She named the pull the other way too. “Repeat clients can become comfortable with their specific aesthetic, and it can be challenging to break them from what they get accustomed to.”

She also named what a long client gives a designer. “You know exactly how they like things done,” she said. That makes it easier for her firm to turn the client’s wishes into the design.

Sugerman’s firm holds on to both. How the client likes the work done stays the same from home to home. The new idea goes into the design itself. Her firm brings new ideas to the 11th home as to the first, though she does not say they keep the client. Measured against this lesson, that is where a new idea belongs. It is part of the work the client hires her for, not an extra next to it.

Why keeping a client interested with extras goes wrong

Imagine a personal stylist named Saskia Moreau who has dressed Mrs. Pell for six years. Each spring and autumn, she edits Mrs. Pell’s closet and shops for the season. This autumn, Saskia worries that Mrs. Pell has grown used to her. So she sends a hamper at Christmas and starts a monthly email about what is new in the shops. The autumn edit goes the way it always has, with the same three shops.

Mrs. Pell thanks her for the hamper. She leaves most of the emails unopened. In January, a friend mentions that her stylist found her a dressmaker in Paris who works from photos. In March, Mrs. Pell asks the friend’s stylist to dress her for her son’s wedding.

Saskia saw the right problem. Her mistake was putting the new idea next to the work instead of in it. A hamper is a gesture every business in the client’s life makes. A monthly email about the shops is the same for everyone who gets it.

The version that works leaves out the hamper and puts the new idea in the edit. At the autumn fitting, Saskia says, “I’ve found a knitwear maker in Florence I think you’d love. Shall I bring two of her pieces next time?” Mrs. Pell asks to see them. In March, she asks Saskia about an outfit for the wedding.

Bringing a new idea to a happy client is not fixing what works

Many professionals hesitate to change anything for a client who is happy. If the client has come back for years, a change can feel like a risk to the routine they rely on.

The routine does not change. Theo’s lesson stayed at Tuesday at 4:30, and Sugerman’s firm kept to how her client likes the work done. The new idea goes inside the work, and you offer it once, as a choice the client can decline. If the client says no, the work stays exactly as it was.

How to give a long-standing client a reason to choose you again

Once a year, list every client who has worked with you for more than a year. Next to each name, write the last new idea you brought into their work, and when. Mark each client with nothing new in the past 12 months. Once a year is the course’s suggestion, so that no client goes longer than that without a new idea. For example, a tutor might find that one student has done the same weekly practice papers since she started.
Look at the clients you marked, and check which of them have ever told someone about you. Plan for every marked client, and start with the ones who have told no one. Here is the course’s reason. A client with no new reason to stay and no story to tell is the likeliest to be staying from habit.
For each marked client, choose one new idea for the coming season. Make it part of the work they hire you for, not a gift or an extra. For example, a private chef might teach a family’s teenage son one dish from the country he is visiting this summer. The chef can teach it on a Sunday afternoon, when the boy is home.
Keep everything the client counts on the same, such as the day, the person, and the way you work. Put the new idea inside that routine. For example, a dog walker might keep the 11 o’clock walk and the photo after it. Then she takes the dog to the beach on the first Friday of each month.
Offer the idea once, in person, as a choice. For example, a coach can say, “Alongside your work goals, I’d like us to add one outside work. Would you like that, or shall we keep to what we have?”
If the client says no, keep the work as it was, and do not raise that idea again. Choose a different idea for the year after. If the client says yes, the idea becomes part of the routine, so next year’s idea is a new one. For example, an event planner whose client loved last year’s late-night food truck keeps it at the next party. The new idea for that party is a string quartet for the guests’ arrival.

Next: You will see why a gift that is rare and well timed means more to a client than one they expect.