It’s the give and take with your customers that gives you the edge.
Communication is the key to better relationships with your customers and that could be the difference between the success and failure of a small business, according to one expert.
First and foremost, declares Denise O’Berry, a business must know its customers’ needs, wants and concerns. One of the best ways to accomplish that is to pick up the telephone and call them where there can be a two-way dialogue.
Although e-mail and other one-way communications have their place in customer relationship management, a phone call is crucial to help connect and engage a customer, she said.
“With all the new technology and innovations in the market, it may surprise many that the best CRM tool is the phone, as you can gain valuable insights from listening to clients and talking with them about solutions for their problems. Building relationships is a matter of give and take, and there is no better way to do this than in a personal conversation,” O’Berry explained.
After a customer has trusted you and your business by providing personal information, it is important to sustain the relationship.
Among her suggestions are to have continual check-ins with your customer base. Call them to get their feel for the company and discuss ways to improve.
If it has been a while since you have heard from a customer, be proactive and give them a call to see how you can help.
Another tip from O’Berry calls for setting up a special promotion linked to the needs of your customer.
Have a regular schedule of e-mail news that highlights existing customer success stories, contains customer testimonials, new offers and company news.
Besides the follow-up phone call, send a letter via the U.S. Postal Service, which will make you memorable, she said. This is because businesses do not do this too often anymore. Make sure the letter has contact information, including your website.
While social media is all the rage among marketers, traditional CRM efforts still do pay off.
The chief executive of BNI, Ivan Misner, goes as far to say that “with Facebook, you’re just another profile. Person-to-person networking is significantly more valuable, especially now, because it is the anomaly.”
People, whether it is B2B or B2C marketing, appreciate a personal touch in today’s world of online communications.
So while your competition is waiting for that “Facebook ship to come in, you can be building real world relationships that will last much longer than the Facebook revolution.”
Marketing expert Nancy Friedman, also known as the Telephone Doctor, said to keep maintaining a relationship with its customers, a business has do the things that make it “be special, different, proactive and extra good.”
The goal is to keep your name out in front of your customers and referral partners.
“You see, once you interact with the customer, once they purchase an item from you, they don’t like to be ignored. Well, it’s not that they don’t like it, they really don’t understand it. The customers think to themselves, 'Gee, I just bought a bunch of XXX from YYY and I never hear from them. They must have forgotten about me,’” Friedman said.
She took O’Berry’s point about making a follow-up phone call a step further. “Expect and be prepared to reach voice mail. It’s gonna happen. So be prepared. Have a ready-made, short, sweet and to-the-point message for your customer.
“It’s not necessary to ask them to call you back (unless there’s a very good reason). You can simply make an announcement such as, 'Mrs. Jones, this is Bob at Bob’s Appliances. I hope your new dishwasher is doing great. Was thinking about you and wanted to say thank you again for your purchase.’ That’s it. Your company name will be in their computer brain. It’s a way to maintain customer relationships,” she said, adding it is important to be prepared and not to wing it.
Friedman suggests making a few “NUM” calls every day—NUM being shorthand for no ulterior motive. She has seen a lot of success just from simple “I was thinking about you and wanted to say hello” calls.
NUM calls also help to advance your word-of-mouth marketing efforts. Another way to help word of mouth marketing is to handle your customer’s problem immediately. “Ignoring the customer or putting off calling will only make the situation worse,” she said.
“So when you make that NUM call or handle the problem immediately, what do you think your customers will tell others? Right. How good you are! And you can gain additional business by those methods.”
Friedman told an anecdote about a copy machine salesman her company did business with. This salesman was very good at the point of sale, but once the transaction was completed, she had a better relationship with the repairman because of the lack of follow-up.
“What do you think I would have told my business associates if that copy salesperson had stayed in touch with us? Right. How good he was. I could have gotten that sales person additional business. By staying away from me I had forgotten him. Not a great method,” she said.
But if you do make phone or some other form of contact, you need to be at the top of your game, notes Art Sobczak, president of Business by Phone.
“While technology has helped us become smarter in many ways, it also allows people to do dumb things in many ways. For example, salespeople sending out non-targeted messages, or just plain old ill-conceived e-mails and voice mails,” he noted.
What he termed dumb e-mails and dumb cold calls clutter your prospect’s receptacles. The result is a negative impression in your prospect’s mind regarding all sales people.
“So, what to do? Control what you can. Of course, that is the way you approach your calls. Today, there is no excuse, other than laziness for not being totally prepared with intelligence about your prospects, customers, their company and their issues,” Sobczak said.
