Cultivating Your Customer Relationships

No business can thrive and succeed without regular customers or clients. Good clients and customers are the backbone of your business. They are the individuals and the companies you need to take good care of, keep happy and create a long-lasting and trusting relationship with.

Did you know that:

• Acquiring a new customer costs about five times more than retaining an existing one.

• Increasing customer retention by just 5% can increase profits from 25-95%

• The success rate of selling to an existing customer is about 60-70%, while the success rate of selling to a new customer is 5-20%

While some businesses are Business-to-Business and others are Business-to-Consumer, it is important to remember that all businesses are People-to-People. People like dealing with people they like and have a relationship good with. So, it is essential that you build and nurture good customer relationships.

Here are some tips on how you can cultivate your customer relationships:

Create open communication with your customers

Where you have open and honest communication with your customers, it promotes a two-way communication where they can talk directly to you about your service, your product or your business.

When there’s open communication, you can expect your customers to be open to other points of contact like newsletters, marketing emails, social media updates and the like. If your customers are comfortable with these, you need to make sure that your website and your social media channels are always up to date and that you reply to any queries and questions quickly. The best way to make them open to such communications is to share information and insights rather than just sales messages.

The biggest mistake businesses make is only communicating with customers when they want to sell them something.

Ask for feedback, comments and testimonials

There is no better way to improve your service or product than getting authentic feedback and comments from your customers. You can ask what they think about your product or service, your logistics, your customer experience, waiting times, after-sales care or even prices.

When you get feedbacks regarding these matters, act accordingly. Think about what you can do. Can you improve your customer experience? Can you answer customer queries faster? Can you deliver goods or services quicker? Can you change your pricing strategy?

With the surge in inflation, every business needs to be raising its prices but there are ways to do this which make it more palatable to your existing customers. This can include extending payment terms, not raising prices for customers who are willing to commit to longer contracts or supplementing your offering with low cost, high value items, products or services.

These are items, products or services that cost little for you to deliver but are highly valued by the customer. Training is a common low cost, high value item. It takes little time to share your valuable “how to” knowledge through a video, e-book or even a half-day workshop. These can deliver major benefits to your customers and clients and are therefore highly valued. An excellent low cost, high value service is giving your customers referrals whenever appropriate.

The importance of feedback is developing and improving your service/product. So, it is not enough to just ask. It should always be followed by a review and action.

Part of your feedback process should include asking for testimonials from happy customers. Happy customers like to share their thoughts with others and testimonials add weight to your marketing.

Give rewards to your best customers by providing perks and benefits

It’s not enough to nurture customer relationships just by establishing great communication or listening to their feedback. It’s also very crucial to reward your long-term customers with perks and benefits that will only be accessible and available to them for being loyal to you and your business.

You can give perks and benefits to your valued customers by:

• Giving them early access to new products and services
• Offering them discounts on their purchases or giving them freebies
• Giving a special gift to your valued customers who can refer new customers
• Organising events or get-togethers for them such as dinners, wine tastings, hospitality at sporting events etc.

By making your customers feel special and valued, you will build a strong and long-lasting relationship with them. And when you have created this strong relationship, they will become advocates for your brand.

If you are looking for more advice and tips on your business, don’t hesitate to reach us at +44(0)1892 807 001 or email us at accounts@nayloraccountancy.com.