Savvy business individuals understand the role that excellent customer service and building customer relationships plays a crucial role in the success of the business. They understand that winning the loyalty of customers is not something that happens quickly, it takes time, and it requires consistent and ongoing efforts to retain their loyalty. While pricing and other business features are important loyalty us earned by taking care of the customer needs and preferences by exceeding their expectations and delivering promises made to them.
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Customer relationships are fragile and the hard won loyalty can be lost immediately through poor service delivery or customer service. Moreover, poor performance and unsatisfactory service are some of the key aspects that lead to loss of vital customers. Most clients will understand an occasional problem or misstep that is handled with care and fast enough. However, repetitive mistakes and low customer service quality cannot be tolerated and they may decide to change service or product provider.
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Customers do not tolerate rudeness, poor quality service, inconsistency, unnecessary bureaucracy among other negative aspects of business, moreover the competition are hungry for business and would do anything to attract new clients to boost their customer base.

Building Customer Relationships – What You Need to Know

Communication 

All customers look for a service or product provider that communicates with them; understand their problems and their taste and preferences. Most companies have made a big mistake of training their employees to memorize sales pitches, apologies, and greetings. This does not give the client a personal touch and they will feel that you are not communicating with them. However, reading customer cues and offering sound advice is key in maintaining customer relationship. When speaking to a customer it is imperative that you get face to face and use their names during the conversation, you can include jokes but remain relevant and polite.
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It is vital that you avoid looking like a robot that has memorized lines for business use, utilizing multiple communication channels is necessary to improve organization and reliability. According to a recent study, 77% of the customers believe that companies that offer multiple communication channels provide better service and makes customer. It is vital that customer support think about the customer from a personal or real life situation, most people would be loyal to a product or service after engaging with them for sometime. The same concept applies when building customer relationships, acknowledging, acting on an item, following up and feedback are some of the key aspects to retain customers.
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Learn about your customer

Building a good company rapport with the clients is like building a relationship as a salesperson. It is important that you know your customer, understanding the customer will go a long way in providing excellent service and meeting their expectations. Moreover, you can suggest new products or service when a client knows that you understand their taste and preference. One of the best ways of knowing your customer is to keep on with the conversation after the transaction, following up on clients will make them feel appreciate and that you deliver on your promises. You can add value to them by sending blog posts, training sessions or referrals among other aspects. The experience you deliver is what will differentiate you with your competitor.
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Live for customer complaints

Customer complaints and negative feedbacks are very important in any successful business, they give you factual information on how the customers feel or think about the service offered. In addition, the complaints will help you improve on service delivery and give you a chance to redeem yourself by showing that you care about the client. Dealing with complaints immediately and offering high quality service will prevent the toxic comments from going viral on social media or other platforms.

According to research, 70% of the customers who complain are likely to remain loyal, do business with you again if you resolve complains immediately, and offer satisfactory service. When rectifying a situation offering a heartfelt apology and thanking the customer for bringing the problem to your attention is key in building a good company image. It is imperative that you be realistic when offering a solution, one of the vital aspects in business is to avoid disappointing the customer again. Building customer relationships is a two way street and working together with the client will make the bond strong and improve customer loyalty.
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Stay in touch with the clients

The key to building a good rapport with the customers is to keep the eye on the ball; every interaction with the client should be treated as a chance of monitoring and reinvigorating the relationship. Keeping regular contacts with the customer and tracking their sentiments towards the business and rectifying issues that could crop is possible through maintaining a regular contact. 96 %, of unhappy customers will not complain when they are unhappy, moreover, 91 % will leave and never return, however, with a constant communication you will be able to understand the problem and rectify it as soon as possible. Tracking customer satisfaction is difficult and if the opportunity is, there it should be utilized with utmost priority.
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Build trust with clients

Whether you have a rewarding or committed relationship with your wife, dog or hamster you understand that building trust is a practice and takes time. A customer trust is built with time and exceeding their expectations. Commitment is a key ingredient in any successful long-term relationship, developing a customer commitment to the business and product will improve the company’s revenue. Moreover, customer retention and willingness to refer is based on the mutual trust that the customer and the company have for each other. Customer satisfaction and trust are the essential determinants of a commitment. It is imperative that you show compassion, be honest, and show that you have competence to handle the client’s needs. It is important that you exhibit these characteristics because trust diminishes when there is a perceived risk or vulnerability.
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Reward loyal customers

According to studies done on customer satisfaction and level of service delivery, an average repeat customer will spend 70 % more than new clients. This shows the importance of having a good relationship with the customer. Staying in touch with them and giving them, something in exchange for their time is a vital aspect in improving the services offered by the company. It does not have to something huge, a coupon, notice or helpful insights will go a long way in building customer relationships.