How do you raise prices for your services without losing customers?

How do you raise prices for your services without losing customers?

With the economic turbulence, fluctuating fuel prices and increasing interest rates, it is becoming more difficult for businesses to cope without raising prices.

After all, a customer who is also struggling is not likely to sympathise with your financial sorrows.

The question is how do you raise your prices without chasing such a customer away?

Remember, you are in business because you want to make a living and not to finance the customers' needs. So it is imperative that you find a way to raise your prices while retaining the majority of your customers.

Many experts and business coaches say the first imperative is to re-evaluate your business plan and update it.

State clearly in your business plan update what you want to do, how you intend doing it and estimate revenues, expenses and profits for the first few years.

Once you have done that you should add up weekly living costs and business outlays and take your lead from these.

After coming up with what you want to charge you should compare it with the market rate to see how cheap or expensive you are.

If you have just started you will probably have to charge less than seasoned competitors.

In case you have been in business for a while and would like to up your price, it is advisable to increase your fee for new clients only.

You should use this as an exercise to explore how high you can push the rates.

Finally, the most important thing to bear in mind is that the service you provide must match the fee you charge .