Everybody understands that the strongest pillar to keep a business growing strong is to keep its customers happy and satisfied, but how many of us understand that with this come a number of responsibilities. Maintaining loyalty, taking accountability for action, making your customers feel important, reward them for being loyal and more.
So, why is it necessary to maintain a healthy and long lasting relationship with your customers? This is not just to generate a constant revenue stream, which is obvious, but also to keep your brand’s name more visible. Another important aspect is the factor about “word of mouth”. The world today is going social and most people talk on platforms such as Facebook or Twitter, so when people talk good about your brand, it strengthens the company’s trust factor. More the number of people talking good about your brand better will be your reception in the market.
Now, what does it take to build that unbreakable relationship with your customers? Here are a few tactics that a brand could adopt to help bridge the persisting gap.
- Stay connected
You customers are waiting to listen to you. They are constantly sharing their concerns, opinions and queries with you through various platforms. Make sure that you stay updated about the same so you can maintain real time contact with them. This will not just help you keep your customers happy but also provide you a number of innovative ideas to invest in your business. No wonder your customers are the best place for research and developments. This is also a reason why outsourcing customer support can be a bad idea, as the firm you outsource to can never be as concerned about your brand as you would be.
- It’s a give and take of information
Keep your customers at the centre of everything. They are the people you need to keep your business growing. Keep them informed about your latest endeavours, developments, changes in policy, pricing etc. This allows maintaining transparency which in turn makes your brand more trustworthy. Don’t ever try to trick them with false information this will surely retaliate in the wrong way. The best way to deal with this is to become friends with your customers and have a healthy and truthful discussion instead.
- Ignorance : a loud NO
Social media is the largest talking space in today’s date; it is also one space you have no control over. However there are things you can do to make the space a better playing ground for yourself. Use tools to help you keep track of what has been spoken about you or where your brand name has been mentioned and take action immediately. This can be through comments or personal messages and tweets to the people who want to talk to you. Ignoring such mentions will only lead to a larger spread of the fire. Whether negative or positive all forms of comments require your attention. Remember, your audience likes to be personally attended to.
- Own up
If you have committed a mistake don’t try to bury it with uninteresting things or shrug your shoulders in disapproval. When you know you are on the wrong side, stand by your words, ask sorry for the inconvenience and promise to make it better. There is nothing better than owning up for your mistakes. Your clients and customers are smart and they have done their research well before charging at you. Speaking the truth would not ruin your reputation but instead create an image that you are honest and transparent. No wonder it is rightly said, ‘Honesty is the best policy’
- They expect = you deliver
If you are a brand which serves a B2B market, remember your client has expectations and only when you are able to provide service keeping in mind the deadlines, would they continue their relationship with you. However, this is not the only benefit! It also leaves a lot of spare time for you to make any form of changes demanded by the client and reduces any last minute hassle problems.
If you are a B2C serving brand, the deadlines and expectations are completely different. The expectations are generally related to living up to release dates, quality or quantity of products related. A simple example for this would be people waiting for an update on an app developed by your brand or a discount announced by your brand.
- Gifts and more
Whether it is a client or a customer, it is necessary to reward their honesty towards your brand. Once you have built a strong relationship, to keep the bond growing stronger they expect to be made felt special. Providing a special discount or a personalized offer or even a small gift can get them thrilled.
If it is a client you are dealing with providing them mention over other clients, giving higher discounts or special services can be a great idea.