How to Get Repeat Customers: What the Data Shows

What repeat customers are worth to a business like yours

Repeat customers are a large share of the money in a service business. Across 1,015 residential contractors, they made up 39 percent of annual revenue and 58 percent of the work in 2022. That is the best recent number I found for a business like yours.

Every figure below is from 2020 or later, newest first. Each one has its sample and a link.

• 73%of homeowners would refer a pro after an excellent experience, 1,040 US homeownersHousecall Pro, December 2025
• 39%of annual revenue comes from repeat customers, 1,015 contractors, 2022 dataServiceTitan, 2023
• 71%of last year's business volume came from word-of-mouth referrals, 2022 dataServiceTitan, 2023
• 89%trust recommendations from people they know most, 2,000 US adults, 2021Nielsen, 2021

What one more repeat purchase is worth

Do this sum once with your own numbers. It takes five minutes and it shows you where the next dollar should go.

• A: customers who bought from you in the last 12 months: ______
• B: the share of them who bought again, your repeat rate: ______
• C: your average job or order value: ______
• D: your gross margin on that job, as a percent: ______
• E: what it costs you to win one new customer, counting ads, sales time and any discount: ______
• Profit on one repeat job: C times D.
• Profit on a new customer's first job: (C times D) minus E.
• Profit from lifting your repeat rate by 5 points: A times 0.05 times C times D.

An example, so the gap has a size

Illustration only, not a measured result. Say you served 400 customers last year, 20 percent bought again, the average job is $500 and the margin is 40 percent. Winning one new customer costs $150.

One repeat job earns $200. A new customer's first job earns $50 after the $150 it cost to win them.

Lift the repeat rate by 5 points and you add 20 repeat jobs, worth $4,000 a year. To earn the same $4,000 from strangers you need 80 new customers.

Put your own figures in. If your margin is higher or your cost to win a customer is lower, the gap is smaller. You should know by how much.

Where customers drop after the first purchase

Customers rarely leave on purpose. They drift in the gaps where nobody sends a message, books a date or asks a question.

Here is where the gaps sit, in order, and what closes each one. Repeat rate is one of the five numbers that name your constraint.

The first 30 days: a follow-up sequence

Write it once, load it into the system you already use for invoices or texts, and put a name against every step. A step with no owner does not happen.

Keep each message short, from a person, and about their job. The CRM follow-up system guide covers how to build it.

When to ask for the review

The timing evidence is thin and it does not come from service work. A 2023 write-up from the W. P. Carey School of Business at Arizona State University describes two field experiments, on a travel site and an online fashion retailer. The article does not give a sample size.

Only 6.32 percent of people reminded the day after their event posted a review within a week, against 12 percent with no reminder. Reminders sent about 13 days later beat the group with no reminder.

So a same-day push can backfire. For a finished job, test day 3 against day 10 on your own customers and keep whichever gets more reviews.

Review and referral asks that get answered

Customers are willing. 96 percent are open to writing a review, yet 29 percent wrote one in the past year (BrightLocal, 2025, 1,026 US adults). The gap is the ask. BrightLocal also finds email is the request method most likely to get a response.

A referral needs a name, not a general request. In Nielsen's 2021 US survey of 2,000 adults, recommendations from people they know were the most trusted channel, at 89 percent. Housecall Pro's 2025 survey found 73 percent of homeowners would refer a pro after an excellent experience. That is stated intent, so the ask has to turn it into a name.

Word-of-mouth referrals were 71 percent of last year's business volume at the 1,015 contractors in the ServiceTitan survey. Referrals and repeat work come from the same place, a customer who felt looked after.

• Review ask: 'If the work met your expectations, would you leave a short review? Here is the link. It takes two minutes.'
• Referral ask: 'Who do you know with the same problem? I will call them this week and mention your name, if you are happy for me to.'
• Ask only the customers who said yes at the day 3 check-in. Hold the ask for anyone who reported a problem until it is fixed.
• Thank every referrer within a day, by a person, and tell them how it went.

Service reminders: book the next visit before they leave

The cheapest repeat sale is the one you book before the crew leaves. Zenoti's 2024 data for US and Canadian beauty and wellness businesses shows top-earning salons rebooked 30 percent of clients within 24 hours. The average salon rebooked 10 percent.

Set the reminder date on job day and tie it to what they bought: the filter due in six months, the season, the end of the warranty, the renewal. Housecall Pro's 2025 survey found 59 percent of homeowners expect text updates, so a text is not an intrusion.

A plain reminder works. A 2012 randomized field experiment at a dental practice (IZA Discussion Paper 6699, published in 2014 in the European Economic Review) found that within one month of a reminder, the fraction of patients who made a check-up appointment more than doubled. It is pre-2020 and covers one practice, but it describes how people respond to a simple prompt, and that has not changed. Read it as the mechanism, not as your result.

Why customers leave

Salesforce's 2023 survey of more than 14,000 consumers and business buyers in 25 countries found 59 percent of Gen Z consumers switched brands in the past year. Finding a better deal was the main reason across all generations.

The same survey found 80 percent of customers say the experience a company provides is just as important as its products and services. Housecall Pro's 2025 survey found 68 percent of homeowners would hire the same company again.

Read together, the pattern is plain. Most customers are open to coming back, and the company that reaches them at the moment of need gets the job. Call the customers who had a bad time. A short call that owns the miss is retention, and it is how you find a delivery problem you can fix.

What not to do first

Do not start with a points program, an app or a message to the whole old list. If you cannot name who should have heard from you last month, software only sends the silence faster.

Start with the last 90 days of customers. A messy list is enough, and it is the group that still remembers you. Retention is one of four stages of growth capacity.

Give the sequence one owner for the whole business. When three people share it, nobody sends it. Keep the note to one line: who was contacted, what was offered, whether they booked a next step. If you want more leads instead, read why more leads did not grow revenue.

Also be honest about your work. If customers buy once a decade, a new roof for example, the second sale is a referral, not a reorder. Put the effort into the referral ask and the review.

The one number to track: your repeat rate

Track one number every Monday: the share of your customers who have bought more than once. It tells you whether the follow-up is working before the revenue shows it.

1. Export the last 12 months of jobs or invoices from your CRM or billing system: customer, job date, amount.
2. Count customers with at least one job in that window. Call it A.
3. Count customers with two or more jobs. Call it R.
4. Repeat rate is R divided by A. Write it down.
5. Also divide the revenue from customers with two or more jobs by total revenue. That is your repeat revenue share. ServiceTitan's 39 percent is that measure for residential contractors in 2022, so use it as context, not a target.
6. Run it every Monday on a rolling 12 months. Add a second line: of the customers whose first job finished 90 days ago, how many have booked again.

Numbers you will see elsewhere, and the weight they deserve

Other repeat customer pages lead with these. Here is why this page does not.

What to check this week

Pull 12 months of jobs from your CRM or invoices and work out your repeat rate. Then put a name against every step of the 30-day sequence.

Send the day 3 check-in to everyone whose job finished last week. If you want a second pair of eyes on where your customers drift, start with Find the Constraint.