Existing Customers – Consists of customers who have purchased or otherwise used an organization’s goods or services, typically within a designated period of time.
For some organizations the timeframe may be short, for instance, a coffee shop may only consider someone to be an Existing Customer if they have purchased within the last three months. Other organizations may view someone as an Existing Customer even though they have not purchased in the last few years (e.g., television manufacturer). Existing Customers are important since they have a current relationship with a company and, consequently, they give a company a reason to remain in contact with them. Additionally, Existing Customers also represent the best market for future sales, especially if they are satisfied with the relationship they presently have with the marketer. Getting these Existing Customers to purchase more is significantly less expensive and time consuming than finding new customers mainly because they know and hopefully trust the marketer and, if managed correctly, are easy to reach with promotional appeals (i.e., emailing a special discount for new product).
