Running a business is more than simply selling products or offering services. Each time you interact with your clients, you are influencing their consumer journey and their subsequent opinion of your business. In recognizing this, there are several strategies you can implement to reconnect with your customers and establish a better overall relationship.
Before you can truly serve your customers, you need to know who they are. Who is the primary audience for the product you are selling or the service you are offering? Understanding your client base will allow you to advertise more effectively and create opportunities that will best meet your customers’ needs. In addition to understanding your general audience, get to know your customers on an individual level. Be friendly as you learn their needs and goals. Knowing what your customers want will help you to better serve them.
Make sure you establish clear communication with your customers. Ask about their needs, and repeat back information to make sure you understand their request. Always ask if there is anything else you can do to help, and be courteous and professional in your communication. Your customers will notice your desire to serve them, and they will appreciate your positive attitude. If problems or difficult situations arise, be professional and courteous. Offer solutions, and reflect your desire to make the situation right through your tone of voice and body language.
Although your business serves a variety of people, your customers will feel more valued if you make an effort to speak to them on an individual level. Offer personalized email content, and create automations that send emails at a specific time that is most relevant to your customer. When speaking face-to-face, call customers by name, and offer personalized recommendations in response to their requests and interests. As you show each customer that you value them as an individual, they will have a more positive experience and will respond better to your services.
People are very wary of businesses that are only focused on sales and that fail to follow through on their promises. Establishing a reputation of transparency will build trust among your customers. Begin by focusing on core values instead of sales. Have a mission statement that you are constantly referring back to in everything you do. Don’t mislead in your advertising. You can still run a valuable and competitive business without cutting corners or making promising that you can’t follow through on. Along the same vein, be honest with your customers, even if it means losing their business. Respond to questions and concerns promptly, always with a desire to help.
A good business model is to under-promise and over-deliver. This doesn’t mean that you should give your customers less than they deserve. Instead, always promise a little bit less than what you absolutely know you can achieve. If you believe it will take you three weeks to complete a task, promise to have it completed in four. Not only will this model give you a little bit of extra time in case problems arise; it will also allow you to over-deliver almost every time. If you consistently complete a task in three weeks instead of the promised four, customers will be pleasantly surprised and delighted, more so than if you had originally promised three and delivered on time.
Ask your customers for feedback, whether you use an online survey, comment cards, or a review system. Keep the questions short, but focus on aspects of your service that are most important to you, like speed of service, helpfulness of your representative, or overall quality of your product/service. Set aside time to regularly review the responses you recieve, and adjust your business goals accordingly. Your customers will appreciate your desire to improve, and most will be willing to give honest feedback.
Always thank your customers for their business. You can thank them verbally after a face-to-face visit, or send them a personal email as a thank you. You might also consider offering discounts or rewards for regular customers as a way to thank them for their support.
Whether you are a business owner, manager, or employee, you can improve customer relations by personalizing your services, improving your transparency, and increasing the quality of your communication. As a result, your efforts will lead to more positive customer experiences and an improved relationship with your customers.
by: Dennis Hung
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