In the business world, a company can successfully build its brand in many ways—advertising, online marketing, social media, and a plethora of other building processes.
But perhaps, the most important aspect for the continued success of a company is its relationships with customers. Through positive word-of-mouth, those customers may be the champions needed to bring in new clients and provide an overall boon to the business.
Customer relations are so important in business. If a customer is happy with your products and service, he/she becomes the best brand ambassador for your company. He will not only come back but he will bring in more customers to your doorstep. It’s that simple.
They say that for many outcomes, roughly 80% of consequences come from 20% of causes (the "vital few"). This old adage is known as the Pareto Principle, which has been applied across many industries. Other names for this principle are the 80/20 rule, the law of the vital few, or the principle of factor sparsity.
Let’s have a look at a few simple pointers.
- Simple gestures can go a long way. Make your customers feel special. Remember their anniversaries and birthdays. Send them greeting cards on their special days. Call them personally and wish them on their birthdays and anniversaries.
- Make yourself pleasant to do business with. It sounds obvious, but in today’s fast-paced global economy, it can be easy to forget that fundamentally people do business with people. And people will only want to do business with you if they like you (or at least if they don’t dislike you!). If people find you arrogant or not friendly, they will go elsewhere. Simple. When you’re wondering how to maintain customer relationships, the best way is to be open, honest, and transparent in everything you do. It’s a powerful method, and it’s not difficult to do.
- Resolve problems quickly and efficiently. You must have heard that familiar saying “the customer is always right,” right? And while, in reality, we don’t always believe this, sometimes it pays to smile, nod politely and offer that gesture of goodwill anyway. Because often the ramifications of not doing so are a lot more time-consuming and expensive than they are worth. Maintain customer relationships by thinking about the bigger picture when you’re dealing with one-off situations.
- Listen to your customers. Whether they’re feeding back on recent service, telling you about an issue they’ve had, or just offering ideas for improvement, maintain customer relationships by really listening to what your customers are saying. Not what you think they are saying! When you’re talking to a customer, ignore any distractions and process what they are saying carefully before offering a well-thought-out response.
- Make the client your priority. People don’t care about you, they care about themselves, and so being too self-centred and talking about yourselves all the time can be a huge turn-off. So make sure you keep the focus on your customers and build a good customer relationship for the future. Let them know how you can meet their specific needs and make sure you go out of your way to actually do so. Or even better, ask them what they’d like from you.
- Don’t forget them once the sale is done. Provide excellent after-sales service to all your customers. Keep in touch. Follow their company on social media channels and congratulate them on any of their achievements.
- Getting appropriate feedback is very important. Take regular feedback on your products and services. Ask them for any suggestions which can enhance your product/ service. This will make them think that they are important and their opinion is of value to us.
- Keep in regular touch with your customers. Send emails enquiring about their personal lives and blogs/ articles or any industry knowledge which will be of interest to them. Try to keep consistent communication with your customers.
- Stick to our commitments. Meet the deadlines. Don’t over commit and under deliver. Do what you are saying you are going to do. This will build trust in you.
- Do that extra mile for your customer. Go out of the way if your customer needs your help. Your good work will surely pay off.
Remember, communication is key to establishing a trustworthy relationship; talk to your clients to get a feel for what they value most and then incorporate their preferences into your workflow.
In this post-pandemic era, while everyone is proactively working hard to survive, maintaining good relations with our existing customers is one of the best sales strategies.
