If your business’s success is predetermined by one thing, it is how your customers perceive you. Therefore, building a better relationship with your customer is not just about ensuring that you give them the product they need, but it’s about building that bridge that will serve both of you well. What does it take to build a better bond with your customers over time?
Adapt to Their Needs
Many companies seldom listen to their customers properly, but instead think that asking for feedback is just lip service. In fact, it is critical that we listen to what they present and while there can be a lot of feedback that relates directly to the individual, every now and again you will come across some gold that represents your entire target market. A very good example is the payment process. No customer wants their sensitive card details chewed up by the system, nor do they want to be paying twice for something due to a problem on your website. A high-performance payment gateway built for developers of websites will make things easier for you, but it will also go a long way to cement the bond between a business and customer by making a website easier to use. It’s always about keeping things simple, and this is how you will adapt to their needs.
Understand What Your Customers Value
We can spend a lot of time thinking that customers need certain things and therefore we force things upon them believing that we are giving them something they don’t know they want yet. The biggest problem with this is that we are not listening to them. Market research gives us direct insight into what a customer wants, but also what they value above everything else. We should always listen to what they have to say, but also how they say it, and therefore we can adjust our approach to match their needs. Some customers want the hands-off approach to be in contact with you, for example, online chats, but others want to have that personal approach. Lots of modern businesses have made the mistake of thinking that they can easily tune through the workload by automating a huge amount of processes. But in doing this, are you going to alienate the customer? You have to remember that it’s about what they value, and if you deliver what they perceive is important, they will keep coming back to you.
Genuinely Show Them You Care
It is not just a professional transaction, but it is a personal one. This is where a CRM (customer relationship management) system is worth its weight in gold because it allows you to input very important customer facts like their purchase history or birthday and you can then start tailoring things to their needs on a one-to-one level. This is the digital equivalent of remembering those little facts that make someone feel so important. This will go a long way to making your business far more personable. When you are more personable, you cut through the perceived professionalism of other businesses, and you are more likely to acquire and keep their custom.
