Do You Actually Know How Your Customers Found You?

Oct 1, 2026 · @Tom Zbaren

Most owners have a sense of how new customers discover their shop, based on assumptions picked up in conversations over the years rather than actual knowledge. A customer mentions a friend's recommendation, another says they saw the website, and gradually those comments become a general understanding of how the business is found.

That perception matters more than it seems. Attracting new customers takes time and money, and the most cost-effective way to spend both depends on knowing which efforts actually bring people through the door. The more that knowledge comes from real customers rather than accumulated impressions, the stronger every marketing decision becomes.

Where Assumptions Fall Short

Impressions favor the memorable. An enthusiastic referral gets retold and remembered, while the customer who quietly found the shop through Google maps leaves no lasting impression at all. Over time, the picture tilts toward the stories that stuck.

The cost of that tilt is easy to miss. A shop might keep renewing an advertisement that brings in a handful of customers a year, while doing little to consistently nurture more referrals from interior designers or posting on social media.

A Simple Habit, Owned by the Whole Team

The information most shops are missing passes across the counter every day. Every new customer knows how they found the shop and why they chose it. The only step missing is asking, consistently, and writing down what they say.

That step works best when the whole team owns it. Anyone who works with customers should treat it as a natural part of every first conversation. Most people on the floor of a frame shop are drawn to the design work, and the marketing side can feel like someone else's concern. Yet asking one or two questions to learn more about the customer's journey can have a big impact.

What makes the answers valuable is consistency. Ask every new customer and, this is critical, have a place to record the answer.

The habit matters more now than it once did. The way people discover and choose a shop keeps shifting: social media shapes what they notice, and a growing number now begin their search by asking an AI tool for a recommendation. Assumptions formed even a few years ago may no longer describe how customers find you today. Asking every customer keeps the picture current, and the habit comes down to two questions.

Two Questions Worth Asking

The first question is familiar: "How did you hear about us?" It identifies the channel, whether that's a referral, a search, social media or the sign out front.

The second is asked less often and is usually more revealing: "What made you decide to come in?" A customer who found the shop online may have chosen it because the photos showed work like her own, or because a neighbor's framed piece still looks perfect after ten years. The first answer shows how people find the shop. The second shows what its reputation actually rests on, in customers' own words.

What a Few Months Reveals

After a few months of answers, the owner has something most shops never have: an account of how the business is actually found, drawn from customers rather than memory. Some assumptions will hold up, and a few will be surprising. Either way, the next decision about where to spend marketing time and money will rest on evidence.

Over to You

In the shop where I work, this information often goes unrecorded, and I suspect that's common. So I'm curious: of your last ten new customers, how many could you say, with confidence, how they found you?