Boost Your Customer Relationships in 3 Easy Steps! 🚀🤩🤝
Patricia Hammond 
When was the last time you put an intentional effort into cultivating customer relationships?
I don’t mean blasting emails announcing new products or coupon codes.
I mean a focused and ongoing campaign to establish a connection with customers after their first purchase.
It sounds exhausting, doesn’t it?
Who has time to find new clients, provide the service people pay you for, manage the business side of business, and hand hold people who already know you?
You do. Or at least you should make time.
Customer relationships are worth their weight in gold.
And platinum.
There are three reasons to prioritize building relationships with existing customers.
- It’s easier to sell new products and services to customers who already know you.
- They are a pipeline for future referrals.
- They are a fantastic resource of ideas for new products and markets.
Even better, you’re already in the door, so you don’t have to waste time and money getting past the gatekeeper to get their attention.
I know it sounds overwhelming, but it doesn’t have to be.
All it takes is three easy steps.
1. Automate Communication
Use your email service’s features to create and send targeted emails to different customer segments.
CRMs and social media management platforms make it easy to give attaboys or share content when an important client posts on social media. All you need to do is set the system to follow the person’s posts and notify you when they share something.
Use a linking app like Zapier to connect your sales system to your email service provider. This will help you can send personalized automated emails to customers based on their actions.
Depending on the systems you use, it may take 30 - 60 minutes to set up templates and create automations, but it is well worth it.
2. Establish a personal connection
This is where solopreneurs and microbusiness owners shine.
Instead of relying on surveys and expensive market studies, you have direct access to your clients.
Use this to your advantage.
Meeting with customers in person will help you build trust and learn things you wouldn’t learn from a survey.
3. Follow Through
I cannot stress the importance of following through.
Customers want to build relationships with people like you. They want to find trusted sources they can turn to fix their problems and will welcome the opportunity to build solid, long-term relationships.
Once you have established those relationships, it’s up to you to act on them.
This is where people drop the ball.
Most solopreneurs and microbusiness owners sell a service. It’s not like Walmart or Home Depot where people go in, get what they need and leave.
When you are a service provider, you need to make a personal connection that encourages people to get to know you so they will like and trust you.
You’ve already done the hard part of getting noticed and making the sale. The rest is easy. All it takes is a little time and effort to develop the type of customer relationships that lead to future sales and referrals.
If you’re stuck, try The Business Guild’s Customer Relationship Planner. (It’s November’s free download!)
This simple, one-page tool walks you through planning a customer relationship campaign for individual customers or entire market segments.
Categories: customer relationships, newsletter, succeed, success