Is your business evolving with your buyers’ expectations? Does it measure up to the competition? In this article, discover how to attract and grow customer relationships with these five keys to success.
The rapid development of marketing and sales tools has opened new vistas for companies of all sizes. It is now feasible, even for companies with limited resources, to adopt various customer relationship tools that aid marketing and sales teams in pursuing the objective to growing the right customer base and retaining it. Business can’t exist for very long without the right relationships, no matter how effective our solutions may be.
Making your company “client-centric” requires you to completely rethink your strategy; because as marketing and sales tools evolve, so do the expectations of consumers.
An insightful article in Harvard Business Review exposes some of the hidden depths of customer relationships, and puts it this way:
“People now expect companies to understand what type of relationships they want and to respond appropriately—they want firms to hold up their end of the bargain.”
With these kinds of expectations, we need to think about how we measure up against the competition when we grow customer relationships.
The right tools will help track the engagement levels of the customer base as well as capture data about their preferences and buying habits. Having this data will let us develop highly personalized communications that will attract the right customers and work to retain them. Given the positive ROI value and increased sales figures that most companies achieve with the right tools, it becomes important to focus on the customers that are vital to our business.
But the tools alone aren’t enough. Even the most advanced intelligence is no substitute for engaging with prospects like they are real human beings. That part is up to us. Let’s take a look at a few ways to achieve this.
How to Grow Customer Relationships
Engage and delight your customers.
Offer them the right resources at the right time depending on where they are in the sales process. The start of a relationship is a critical part of learning how to nurture prospects until they become sales-ready.
Keep the conversation going.
A healthy conversation happens when both you and your customers are learning more about each other. The more you show that you appreciate your customer’s time, the more they will be willing to engage.
Listen to customers.
While it might be important to you to let prospects know what you offer, it’s also vital to pay attention to what they are saying. What kind of relationship are they looking for? What kind of help do they need? What kinds of resources are best to share with them?
Stay available across all communication channels.
To grow customer relationships, be consistent across all your emails, website and social media channels.
Make the best use of your tools.
Leverage the power of those tools to do all the legwork for you, and implement it so finding the right information is easy for the customer.
Focusing on these elements will ensure that you eventually come to the stage of retention. Engagement doesn’t stop when we acquire a customer; it goes well beyond that.
Just as each relationship is unique, so should be our focus to retain and grow customer relationships. If you’re not focusing on the right customers and ways to retain them, you may be leaving money on the table. Are you ready to implement the right technology to achieve this?
