Money can’t buy one of the most important things you need to promote your business: relationships. How do customer relationships drive your business? It’s all about finding people who believe in your products or services. And when it comes to tracking these people down, you have two choices. You can do all the legwork yourself and spend a lot of money on marketing. But that’s rolling a boulder up the hill. You want to drive your business into new territory, but every step is hard and expensive. There’s another less painful-and potentially more profitable way- You can create an army to help you push that boulder up the hill instead. How do you do that? You develop relationships with people who don’t just understand your particular expertise, product or service, but who are excited and buzzing about what you do. You stay connected with them and give them value, and they’ll touch other people who can benefit your business. All you need is a plan to make those connections/relationships grow and work for you.

It’s a mantra hammered into the heads of anyone who has ever owned a business, worked in a service industry or stepped foot in the world of sales: “The customer is always right.” Beyond simply placating customers, however, the modern take on this tried-and-true saying has evolved into what some refer to as “relationship marketing”, or the act of building connections, rapport and personal relationships with customers. Today, customer relationship management (CRM) is an increasingly important aspect of running a business – and a successful strategy is an extremely useful tool for almost any business model. A business is only as good as the customers it serves, and no business gets far after losing the customers it has. The key to success is building relationships that go beyond one-time projects and provide value to these customers on a consistent, ongoing basis.

As a business owner/entrepreneur, the most important thing in sales and marketing is to attract and retain your most profitable business customers. To achieve this feat, you must devise and implement a customer strategy that builds, fosters, nurtures and extends relationships with your customers. Your company profits only when the earnings from retained customers exceed the cost to acquire and to service customers over time. There is a strong correlation between long-term business success and long-term customer relationships. Successful businesses capitalise on every stage of the customer life cycle – from customer selection, to customer acquisition, customer retention and customer growth. Once a certain level of trust and comfort has been established, most customers prefer to remain loyal to companies and their products.

Here are a few tips you can use to strengthen your relationships and keep your customers informed and engaged.

Email messages, newsletters, and surveys: Provide products/services update, promote goods and services, and communicate news/events.

Feedback: Ask for, capture, and act on your customer’s input.

Insight: Research your customers’ markets, strategies, and goals.

Relationship building: Talk and listen to customers in order to maintain dialogue and to build a trust based relationship.

Be accessible: Make it easy for customers to reach you.

Customer satisfaction: Implement a customer satisfaction policy that provides a way to resolve/remedy problems and issues.

Involvement: Engage customers in product development/enhancement, via beta tests, focus groups, and pilots.

Anticipate customer needs: Learn their business, their purchasing patterns, and their requirements for effective proactive solutions.

Become an indispensable source: Look for ways to add value, to be a real partner, and to help your customers achieve results.

Help lines: Provide support, service, advice, and information.

The following four easy ways will help you build/grow relationships:

1. Loyalty Programs – Loyalty programs reward customers for their repeat business with discounts, reward points, or special events. Rewards can be as simple as a paper punch card or as high-tech as a mobile app tied to a computer database. Be sure that the loyalty programs reflect your brand and motivate your target customers.

2. Socially Responsible Marketing – Aligning your business with a social cause can increase loyalty by showing customers you care about the same issues they do. Choose an issue or cause relevant both to your business and to your customers. Can’t decide on a cause? Ask your customers or employees for suggestions. Remember, it doesn’t have to be a big, global movement-in fact, it could be supporting small community establishments.

3. Customer Service – Customer service can make or break a business. Regularly examine your business with an impartial eye, or recruit a friend or relative to do it for you. Start outside and pretend to be a customer: Is your business easy to find? Does it have adequate parking? Does your business look welcoming from the outside and appealing once inside? How are new arrivals greeted? Is your business area clean and comfortable? How do receptionists treat guests? Call your business and see what kind of response you get. Is the phone answered quickly or does it ring and ring? Does the employee on the other end sound friendly, glum, bored or disengaged? Today, customer service starts online, so don’t forget too check your website. Do the links work? Are your products, services, special offers current? If you sell products online, is your shopping process and checkout simple? Is your contact information (phone and email address) up to date? If your business has reservation system, does it work?

4. Apps – Creating a smartphone application (app) for your business is the latest way to stay in touch with your customers. Apps enable you to “push” information out to customers who signal that they want to hear from you by downloading your app. Apps also help you reach customers when they patronising your business as well.

 

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