If you’re running a business, whether it’s for-profit or non-profit, odds are you’ll have better success if you have loyal customers. These are the people willing to try your new products or services and who get excited enough to tell their friends about you.
If you’re wondering how to get those types of customers, focus on one word.
Relationships.
If you form good relationships with your customers, they’ll be more loyal, more forgiving when something goes wrong, and more likely to help you succeed.
Why Building Relationships Works
If you think about companies you buy from, you’re probably familiar with the idea of transactional marketing, where a business is just trying to make one sale at a time without worrying about keeping a particular customer in the long-term.
This approach has some benefits, but it won’t build brand loyalty or encourage that customer to come back to you. This is where building relationships comes into play.
As with any relationship, this only works if you express genuine interest in your customers. Show them that you’re interested in hearing about their experience and what could make it even better. Listen when they tell you about the challenges they’re facing. Do what you can to help them and make things better.
This approach is called relationship marketing, and if you use it, customers will become much more engaged and eager to continue business with you. After all, everyone wants to know that someone is paying attention to them and is invested in helping them.
And to be clear, this isn’t just a marketing ploy. If you actively listen to and empathize with your customers, you’ll feel loyalty to them as well, and you’ll likely want to improve things for them.
Business Benefits to Relationship Marketing
When you have this type of relationship with your customers, your business will get a boost in several ways.
On the most basic level, you’ll sell more to these customers, and that includes selling items of higher value. First-time customers are unlikely to spend significant amounts with you, but once they feel a sense of loyalty and connection to you, they’ll be willing to invest more.
This approach also reduces your advertising costs because your customers are advertising for you. Instead of you trying to find new ways to reach people, you can let your loyal customers tell their friends, family, and acquaintances about their experience with you. This is much more effective than trying to reach “cold” customers since many people are more interested when they get a recommendation from someone they know.
Additionally, this type of marketing helps the groups and individuals in your company work together. When everyone knows the priority is on the customer, employees can stay aligned and focused on that shared goal.
You’ll Also Have Personal Benefits
It’s not just your company that will benefit from relationship marketing, though. You’ll notice some differences for yourself.
You’re much more likely to be satisfied in your job if you know that you’re trying to make your customers happy. And there’s a lot to be said for feeling good about what you’re doing.
You’ll also be able to relax a little if you know you don’t have to constantly hustle for new customers. This means you’ll have time to focus on other areas that need attention, and you can even take a break now and again.
Finally, you’ll simply have more fun! When you have those types of relationships with customers, you can experiment with new things and give your creativity an outlet. Not everything will be a success, but having the option to “play” a little in your work keeps it more enjoyable.
You Can Start Anytime
Since today is Valentine’s Day, it seemed like the right time to talk about relationships, although you might not want to talk about customer relationships over a Valentine’s Day dinner.
But after today, you don’t have to wait for a special date to focus on your customers. You can start with this approach at any time.
When you’re ready, you might begin with getting feedback from your existing customers about what works and what doesn’t. Then make sure that you act on what you learned. This includes continuing what you do well and improving on it, perhaps by creating a rewards program or adjusting what you offer to better meet their needs.
And then continue to get feedback, meet your customers where they’re at, and help them achieve their goals. If you do that, you’ll have a good chance of keeping those customers for a long time to come.
Have any examples of companies that do a good job (or a poor job) of forming long-term relationships with customers? Leave a comment!