How To Create A Smooth Relationship With Your Clients
In the actual world, building a strong tie with your family, friends, or colleagues is an aspect that greatly contributes to your wholesome growth as an individual. Same goes with how a business must interact with its clients.
In order to thrive, one should embed in its principles the objective of honoring its customers. Basically, they gave you their trust by choosing you from among other existing services in this highly competitive world. From that reason alone, you should be already motivated to meet their needs and forge a long-lasting relationship that will surely lead towards your respective successes.
One question: do you tend to receive complaints and bad reviews more frequent than congratulatory remarks or huge thumbs-ups? If yes, maybe it’s high time for you to reevaluate what you have been doing recently and perhaps revamp your corporate culture.
Reflect on your brand
Start off by going back to your roots: your company’s mission and vision.
What is your foremost purpose?
How do these statements build the expectations of your prospects? Then align it to the needs of your customers, thereby engaging them to take the same route where you and your business is heading to.
Since these were crafted to build your values and relevance, you have to live up to the promise that you are giving to the people and make it the backbone of your service.
Communicate often
Communication is the foundation to every healthy relationship.
Availability of your customer relations is a prime factor and is measured by how prompt and mannerly you respond to their needs, inquiries, or dissatisfaction.
Do you listen to and take note of their feedback well for you to innovate your service? In doing such, you provide your customers with a warm assurance that you put premium to their opinions and value their presence in your business in general.
You can put up a comprehensible survey to know their sentiments after. Post-service connection is as important as the actual service and getting to know their honest reviews are valuable regardless of how positive or negative it is. Honest opinions always matter.
Provide options to reach you
Offer your customers not just one mode of contacting your business. According to the 2017 Global Customer Service Barometer of American Express, more than six in 10 U.S. consumers say that their go-to channel for simple inquiries is a digital self-serve tool such as a website (24%), mobile app (14%), voice response system (13%) or online chat (12%). These advantageous tools are preferred by most for its heightened accessibility and orientation to a modern and fast procedure.
However, despite the convenience brought by these technological advancements, some still prefer actual human interaction. The aforementioned survey also found out that customers are more likely to seek out a face-to-face interaction (23 percent ) or a real person on the phone (40 percent) when they encounter issues such as payment disputes or complaints. Still, nothing beats the satisfaction brought by straightaway and sincere talks.
Get personal
No, you don’t need to become involved in your customer’s family problems or take a stance when they get into a conflict outside your business. As much as possible, involve both new and frequent clients in corporate-related plans and endeavors.
Come up with a service that fits their individuality. To achieve this, you may try keeping records of their regular transaction with your business, remembering small but vital details like their favorite products or frequent requests, or even as simple as familiarizing their nickname and face.
Most importantly, rather than thinking of yourself as one step ahead of your customers, treat them as a business partner the way you treat your actual family members and friends.
Go beyond the service
As mentioned before, it is important to engage with your clients even after the desired service was completed. If this is not yet implemented in your business, you should start this practice now.
To maintain your engagement, keep in touch with them through a simple follow-up e-mail that delivers message of thanks for trusting your business and that you will always be open to welcome further queries, accommodate requests for support, and receive feedback.
Always make them feel valued as well by providing incentives like discounts or exclusive offers as a way of giving back to their loyal patronage. Here, appreciation is the key.
Conclusion
Many companies claim that they are people-centered but still fail to maintain a heartfelt and long-lasting connection with their clients. Indeed, personalisation is tough to master which can only be achieved by performing with authenticity and laying out an honest concern to solve the problems of your target market.
Stronger credibility as a reliable name in the industry, professional growth, and a chance to create a bigger network are but a few benefits derived from exhibiting and preserving a good relationship with your customers. The methodologies are countless and continue to vary as business trends change and paradigm shift occurs. In the end, however you want it to happen, it will never work without sincerity and the heart to honor them. It costs less, or even nothing, to make them feel the comfort of interacting with an actual human being, not a businessman who is only motivated by profit.
Business Development Manager
6 年You are the Queen Marisa Wiman