You cannot go about improving customer relationship for the short term and succeed. It is a continuous process and involves follow ups right from the time they make their first purchases for you. Primarily, customer service is something that many business owners think later and concentrate more on the marketing part. Instead of devising strategies to retain customers they are more concerned about getting new customers on board.
If you lose your existing customers due to lack of a proper planning about servicing them and supporting their needs after they buy products and services from you, you would be failing in the primary rules of CRM or customer relations management. Your existing customers matter more as they have already bought from you and expect hands-on support and service. They would be the ones who would come once again to buy from you if they are satisfied. It is far cheaper making them stick around with you rather than spend money on ads and promos trying to attract new customers.
In tough economic times it is the old customers that are going to come back to you if you can maintain a level of satisfactory service and do everything possible to improve customer relationship. It doesn't take much to please your existing customers if you have a trained sales service and support team. If you can look after your experienced staff well, they would go all out to keep the customers happy.
Having been with you for long, they develop a relationship with their workplace and have a direct stake in the future of the company. They know much more than others about the need to keep customers happy and contented after buying your product or service. They can also train up and be hands-on guides to the new members of the sales staff and egg them along.
If you maintain a regular database about customers since the time of their first purchase, you would have all the necessary information at hand. You would know the demographics, their interests, hobbies and the type of occupation they are engaged in. Their special days and events they cherish would also be known to you and you can always send a card or small gift.
These small gestures may appear very simple and minor, but can go a long way in cementing your relationship with your customer. People always love when they are wished unexpectedly and feted for achievements and you go several notches up in the eyes of your customers.
For improving customer relationship, you can form small groups of loyal customers and hold informal meetings to get to know more about them. It would be the right place to get feedbacks about your products and services. The more you can make them talk and express their opinions, the more likely it would be for you to sense their attitudes and preferences. You can easily tailor your product and service accordingly for improving customer relationship more.
No. of Times this article has been viewed :
312
Date Published :
Nov 16 2009