Building a Strong Customer Relationship

Building customer relationships is very important in today's developed market where product, price and quality are roughly comparable. Market research has shown that consumers put their money on organizations which they feel 'care' for them. Let us look at some of the ways which can help an organization in building customer relationships.

How Important is it?

"Although your customers won't love you if you give bad service, your competitors will". We all know that a customer's satisfaction or happiness makes or breaks an organization. This is one of the reasons all the management gurus focus on building customer relationships. Often companies feel that the customer left them because the competitor was providing them a better price for the product, but studies have shown that customers leave because they think that their current company hardly cares for them. If you stay in touch with a customer through phone calls, e-mails, newsletters, etc., without selling them anything, you are telling them indirectly that 'I care for you' and when the time comes to buy something from the market, chances are that the customer will buy something from you to reciprocate the gesture. Having an effective customer relationship helps in people-to-people marketing. 

Creating a Bond

Personalize the Relationship. One of the golden rules of business is "customers don't buy products, they buy you". Be helpful to anyone entering your store/office. Always greet them with a smile. This encourages them and helps in setting a positive vibe between you and the customer. If you are contacting your customer over the phone, always ask if it is the right time to talk. Always start the conversation with a general topic and then gradually move to the main purpose of the call. Remembering a customer's preferences also helps as the customer gets the feeling that this person knows a thing or two about me which in turn increases the chances of a sale.

Take Feedback. After the customer has bought your product, make it a point to call him up and ask him how did he find the product. You can make it a point to call them every month. Listen to their suggestions and feedbacks carefully, because most of the times the suggestions/ feedbacks are the unwanted needs of the customer which if not met, can make the customer leave you for your competitors.

Keep your Word. Always keep your word as there is nothing more upsetting for a customer than a failed promise. If there is a delay in the shipment of the product, first thing to do is inform the customer. This is much better than the customer taking the day off from work, waiting for the product to come and then coming to know that there is a delay. Chances are customer will be frustrated and yell 'cancel the whole thing altogether, I don't wanna order it'. Instead, call the customer beforehand and apologize for the inconvenience, but do let him the cause for the delay. Customers do really appreciate that.

Appreciate their Loyalty. Sometimes words are not enough to make a customer believe that you are really there for him. If the customer has been buying products from you, it is time you offer him discount coupons, membership plans etc. This helps in building a strong image of your company in the minds of consumers. And nothing brings more smile on the faces of customers rather than the thought of paying only half the price for the product!

Innovate. Building customer relationships through effective marketing also helps in keeping your customers well-informed. The marketing strategies have changed with the advent of various social networking sites and blogs. Therefore, it is essential for an organization to adapt to these changes to progress in the competitive market.

Challenges in Building Customer Relationships

One can't deny the fact that every theory, every idea faces some challenges when it is implemented. Let us take a look at some of the challenges an organization may face while building customer relationships.

Lack of Commitment. The organizations can lay down the structure and the policies to build relationships with customers, but employees are the ones who have to execute the policies. If employees are holistic towards a customer friendly approach, then there is little scope for the organization to build a customer friendly environment.

Poor Communication. It is very important to get the message across to the customers in a proper way. For example, if the product the customer is asking for is out of stock, then the employee needs to be apologetic to the customer and can give an approximate time-frame by which the product is expected to be back in stock. Being insensitive to customer's emotions drives them away.

Weak Leadership. If the leader is skeptic about the benefits of a customer-focused plan, it is unwise to expect that the employees will carry it out in the desired fashion. The leader should follow with an example. An effective leadership can really turn things around in the favor of an organization.

Building customer relationship is essential for the long term interest of an organization. In fact, businesses today have changed the buyer-seller equation and organizations are focusing more on building customer relationships and partnerships. With all these new customer focused policies, customers surely are going to feel like 'kings'. 

Call Me Next Week....

You finally connect with a prospect and the end of your conversation goes something like this, "I'll get that information to you by tomorrow and I'll call you early next week to discuss it with you." But when you call the following week, you get your prospect's voice mail. After repeated failed attempts to connect with your contact, you move on to another opportunity.

Sound familiar?

Here's how you can prevent this situation from happening. Pinpoint and nail down a specific day and time before you end your call. Here is an example of how you can do that easily and without sounding aggressive or rude.

"I'll get that information to you by tomorrow and I'll call you next week to discuss it with you. How does Tuesday morning work for you? Great, what time works best for you? Any time in the morning? Is your calendar open at 10:15? Terrific; l will send you an email invitation this morning so we can both confirm next Tuesday at 10:15 AM."

This assertive approach is extremely effective for getting your prospect to schedule a specific time to speak with you which means that you increase the likelihood that you will actually connect with your prospect especially if you have the courage to ask them to mark the call in their calendar. Not only does it demonstrate your expertise and professionalism, it differentiates you from your competition, and in today's crowded marketplace, it is essential to find little, yet meaningful ways to stand out from the crowd.

Sometimes, however, it is easy to get mislead by an unfocused prospect who simply says, "Call me next week." The key here is to use the same approach and narrow down a specific day and time. Here is how you handle that conversation and the questions you need to ask:

"What day usually works best for you?" If they say, "Any day is fine" narrow it down with, "How does next Tuesday look?"

Follow this with, "Do mornings or afternoons work best?" or "Is there a particular time of day that works better?" The word 'particular' is key because it encourages your prospect to consider their typical day and think of the best time to call.

In some cases, they may still respond with a vague answer like, "mornings" so take a deep breath and ask one more question: "Does 10:15 work for you?" or "What's your schedule like at 10:15?" Most have found that scheduling an appointment on a quarter hour is more effective than a standard time like 10:00 or 10:30. Some other sales professionals even suggest that you request a time like 10:20 or 10:40. I'm not quite sure about that because calenders are not usually marked like that.

This approach requires a bit of gentle persistence and practise but it is not aggressive or offensive and people respond well to it because it shows that you respect your prospect's time. One key to remember is to keep your voice evenly modulate and your tone conversational. Avoid allowing any type of frustration to creep into your tone because you will automatically be perceived as aggressive instead assertive.

Finally, when you do make your follow-up call, start the conversation by saying something like, "Mr Contact, I'm calling you as promised." If you happen to get their voice mail, hang up and call three- to- five minutes later. If you get bumped to VM again, leave the above message. More often than not, you will get a return call. At least that has been my experience.

Resist the temptation to leave the next call or meeting unscheduled and you will dramatically improve your results. By the way, this approach works equally as well for face-to-face meetings.

Keep Them Coming Back!!

Personal selling is one of the most important aspects of almost any business career – because you're always selling, not just to customers, but to your boss, your peers and colleagues, even your friends. Persuading others, pitching your case – call it what you want, but understanding how to get someone else to do what you want them to do is one of the most basic skills of being human.

In terms of dealing directly with customers, my favorite advice would come from Dale Carnegie's classic book How to Win Friends and Influence People. You can read all of the current how-to books you want but you won't find better, more concise advice. Remember people's names. Ask about their feelings. Try to understand them and their own points of view. These are the building blocks not just for great salesmanship, but also for lasting friendships.

What if you lose a client? What this question really emphasizes is how important it is to make sure that we do it right the first time, because once we lose a customer, as is clearly the case here, we may never get a chance to be able to talk to that customer again. We know that, so what do we do now?

Whether this is a business-to-business (B2B) or business-to-customer (B2C) setting doesn’t really matter. If it is a B2C setting then it's going to be very hard to go to a particular customer and make everything alright. If it's a B2B setting, then it's worth investing some effort into going back to the customer and educating him about the new things we have, making it clear what we can offer him now and also emphasizing what's in it for him by at least reconsidering doing business with us. In the meantime, what we want to do is make sure that we are doing everything as well as we can and hope that word of mouth will reach that customer and he might give us another try.

What else can we try? Possibly a loyalty program if it’s appropriate for your business environment. You will know. With all of the changes, mostly negative, taking place in the world of customer loyalty programming - growth in private-label credit cards, finding the right mix of hard and soft benefits, building an extensive (and often expensive) multi-channel communication program, fixing value of loyalty rewards in customers' minds, dealing with difficulty in redeeming rewards, changes in qualification for rewards, ability to reward best customers, and on and on - I'm more inclined than ever to believe that the best loyalty programs are no loyalty programs at all. Not that suppliers aren't, and shouldn't be, focused on creating the highest levels of customer advocacy behavior possible, it's just that loyalty programs may not be the best vehicle for achieving that goal. In fact, because these programs are typically built to drive more frequent purchasing, rather than create a stronger and deeper emotional and relationship bond with the supplier on an individual customer basis, they can even be counterproductive as a strategic device. Loyalty programs ought not be used as a crutch or surrogate for creating stronger connections with customers, and they too often are just that.

Although there are successful loyalty programs, to be sure, the most effective ways of creating the highest customer lifetime value are a) effective, continuously improved customer-related processes, including messaging and experience management, b) leveraging methods for assuring stakeholder engagement, continuity and productivity, especially among customer-touching employees, c) creating a customer-driven culture, building customer centricity into the DNA of the organization, and d) having a customer information system and database that is as detailed, real-time and actionable as possible, down to the specific customer and experience (i.e., divisible) level.

Winning the Customer Loyalty Battle

Knowledge is the key weapon to effective customer satisfaction. Know what your customers want, making sure your staff is well trained to provide the services offered. A great start towards successfully meeting customer expectations.

After that, service & product providers need to be well equipped with answers. For example, the multitude of vendors selling airline tickets and the frequent lack of communication leaves ground employees at a loss when trying to answer consumer questions. It is your responsibility to arm employees with knowledge so they can provide clear, helpful answers. If a client calls and your business consistently has the most helpful and appropriate answers you will win their trust and loyalty.

The key to good customer service, in any industry, is not winning a battle but winning the war, especially in a competitive business environment. For a business involved in sales, typically what is at stake when it comes to customer relations is time spent for services provided. Therefore, service providers need to determine how much time they can afford in the course of a month or year to expend for the sake of maintaining ongoing relationships. After all, service-oriented business (more than any industry) must follow the 80-20 business principle, whereby 80 percent of their business must come. You might not please everyone, but the clients that actually pay the bills will be in the loop consistently.

Give your customers a constant, active feedback process. Either online or via a rep, they should be able to, in an instant contact your company about any issues good or bad. Then make the return response as quickly as possible. Again this lets the customer know you care about their opinion and you are in a position to change and or augment a process to quell their worries. You can also communicate to them through newsletters, or regular blog posts. It's all about keeping in touch and making them feel your focus in on them and their satisfaction.

In summary product awareness, business particulars, expert sales staff, communication, and the efficient use of CRM will bring a bond that could carry your company through sale after sale from a customer that is truly satisfied you have a superior product or service and you’re willing to back it up.