Cultivating long-term, meaningful customer relations is an important part of any business. It goes beyond offering an incredible product and encompasses the entire customer experience, which should be consistent across every interaction you have with your customers.
According to a Microsoft report, 54% of consumers state that they have higher customer service expectations than they did previously. The pressure is on for businesses to differentiate themselves and take better care of their customers. 96% of customers said that customer service plays a role in their choice of and loyalty to a brand.
More and more companies are investing in customer relations to earn loyalty and retain those valuable long-term customers. If you want to improve customer relations at your company, it helps to understand just what this means.
What is customer relations?
Customer relations refers to all the different ways companies engage with customers to improve the customer experience. This includes helping customers with short-term problems as well as proactively enabling customer success with long-term solutions.
It has the goal of creating reciprocal relationships with customers that go beyond an initial purchase. It aims to nurture positive relationships with customers so they keep returning to your company to purchase repeatedly and refer your services to friends and family.
Customer relations is part of every aspect of the business but it’s mostly concentrated in the customer service department. Customer service, customer support, and customer success play the biggest roles in creating a thriving customer relationship. However, marketing and sales are also responsible for developing positive customer relations since they significantly influence a company’s interactions with the customer.
There are both reactive and proactive functions of customer relations.
Reactive functions occur when customers report issues to be solved, and the team must respond to customer complaints and resolve their problems. This kind of customer support is essential to any healthy customer relationship.
Proactive functions involve the steps taken towards building a long-term relationship with customers, aimed at enabling customer success by meeting customer needs. Customer success teams share information about products and updates as well as discounts and other exclusive offers. These actions create a lasting impression on customers who are likely to go on to become loyal to your brand.
Differences between customer service and customer relations
Customer service and customer relations are very closely related. Customer service is what your company provides to customers to ensure their success, and it is an inbound function that customers expect as the first point of interaction with your business. It is possible for companies to provide proactive customer service, but most customer service is delivered in response to an action taken by the customer.
Customer relations is different from customer service because it encompasses both the inbound and outbound strategies undertaken by your company, across multiple departments. It includes all the important functions of customer service, but goes beyond that to encompass all the actions taken before and after that customer interaction.
It deals with your organization’s ability to react to present customer issues but also with a view to the long-term approach of improving future experiences. Customer relations includes the proactive measures your company is taking to engage customers and enhance the overall customer experience.
What are the benefits of an effective customer relations strategy?
There are many advantages to developing a customer relations strategy. Here are four ways positive customer relations can pay off:
Higher customer retention
Companies that manage their customer relations will see improved rates of customer retention. Customers stay with the business for longer because they have a better experience with the brand.
66% of consumers who switched brands did so because of poor customer service. Since customers have a meaningful relationship with your brand, they are likely to stick with your products and services for longer.
Increasing customer retention is important because returning customers are worth more to your business over time. A 5% increase in customer retention rates can result in 25% more profits, according to Bain & Company.
Higher customer loyalty
When competitors are just a click away, customer relations has the ability to increase loyalty to your brand. Customer loyalty is extremely valuable for businesses since repeat customers often buy more than leads you haven’t converted yet.
Existing customers are 50% more likely to try new products and spend 31% more than new customers. Building customer relations is important because it gives customers an intangible incentive to keep returning to your business.
Customer advocacy and brand reputation
Returning customers often refer others to your company. If customers are loyal to your brand, they often become brand advocates and recommend your products and services.
Brand advocates are highly satisfied customers who share information about the products and services they use without any incentive to do so. After making a decision, 83% of consumers report that a word-of-mouth recommendation was a leading influence on their purchase decision.
Customer relations has the ability to attract new customers to your brand through these word-of-mouth advocates.
Avenues for revenue growth
The longer a customer stays with your business, the higher the Customer Lifetime Value (CLV). Higher CLV means each customer will bring in more revenue for your business, and you can also spend less money on attracting new leads by focusing on your existing customer base.
9 ways to build customer relations that last
- Create an internal CRM structure
- Deliver personalized customer experiences
- Deliver real value to customers through need identification
- Prioritize speed and consistency of customer service
- Enable omnichannel communication
- Improve self-service capabilities
- Balance customer centricity & employee wellness
- Constantly collect customer feedback
#1 Create an internal CRM structure
Invest in a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system to capture detailed information about your customers, right from their very first interaction with your brand. CRMs are powerful tools that can capture your customer’s product likes and dislikes, spending patterns, location, age, and gender.
Organizing customer data in a centralized shared database helps you overcome the inefficiencies of data silos by making it quick and easy to access customer information and provides a single source of truth for internal collaboration. When you use a CRM, you can easily pull up customer information when you interact with a customer, streamlining communications and improving customer service.
#2 Deliver personalized customer experiences
Connecting with customers on a personal level is the key to differentiating yourself in the customer experience. Customers seek relationships with brands that made them feel like valued individuals, and in fact, around 33% of customers abandon a business relationship because personalization is lacking, while 48% of consumers expect specialized treatment for being a good customer.
Personalization builds loyalty, increases conversions, and ultimately drives higher revenue. Personalize your interactions with your customers by using their names on all email communications, use a tone that matches the customer’s personality, ask them about their preferences, and create personalized content.
For instance, we created a Customer Service Maturity Assessment test to offer personalized recommendations for a company’s support process. The test is educational and serves as a reality check for our readers and customers who manage the support setup in their company.
#3 Deliver real value to customers through need identification
The right customer engagement strategy can help you figure out what your customers need from you, and help you deliver exceptional service to your customers. For example, customers may contact you about a problem when the situation is really caused by a wider issue. Addressing that wider issue is the key to building customer relations and earning the loyalty of a long-term customer.
Listen to what customers are saying, notice their actions and reactions, and look for opportunities where you can help them.
Another way you can deliver value is by recommending new products and services to customers who might have need of them. Help them derive more value from their existing products and services by delivering educational content.
#4 Prioritize speed and consistency of customer service
In 2017, 12% of American consumers said their number one frustration with customer service was lack of speed. That’s only increasing as our expectations for immediate service continue to rise. Being quick to respond to customer service queries is an important part of customer relations, since that’s what customers expect and it’s part of the overall experience.
Customer service interactions should also be consistent across channels. One great experience is not likely to earn you the trust or loyalty of a customer, but five great experiences are certainly a powerful influence on the customer relationship. Offer consistently outstanding service no matter how or when customers contact you.
#5 Enable omnichannel communication
The omnichannel approach to customer communication means you offer the same customer experience across all channels. The customer can be shopping online on desktop or mobile, by telephone, or in a brick-and-mortar store, and the experience is seamless across channels, even as the customer transitions between them.
Companies can use the omnichannel experience to enhance marketing and service efforts. Customers consistently receive the same experience no matter what channel they contact you on, and this serves to enhance both their satisfaction and their loyalty to your brand.
#6 Improve self-service capabilities
Sometimes, the most important part of customer relations is customers not having to reach out at all. It seems counter-intuitive, but customers don’t always want to contact one of your agents.
While a spectacular customer service team is still important, today’s customers are used to helping themselves. 90% of customers say they expect a company to provide an online portal for self-service.
You can reduce the burden on your support team by providing a self-service portal that helps customers solve basic queries while keeping the lines of communication open for those who really need it.
#7 Balance customer centricity & employee wellness
Businesses should be hyper-focused on their customers but not at the expense of employees’ wellbeing. Your customer support agents are going to be the first point of contact with customers so you should work to build a positive environment where employees can thrive.
Ensure you have enough agents to handle the volume of customer queries you receive so they can spend enough time on each conversation. Offer incentives to employees who have the highest customer satisfaction score and celebrate positive customer interactions.
#8 Constantly collect customer feedback
Preparing engaging customer survey questions is the first step to pick your customers’ brain and understand what they expect from your business. The right set of customer questions will eliminate assumptions about your brand perception, as it enables you to act on informed insights collected from customer feedback.
Brands are viewed more favorably by 77% of consumers if they proactively invite and accept customer feedback. Simply the act of asking for feedback is enough to improve your brand’s reputation among customers and enhance the customer experience.
It’s important to act on customer feedback in order to improve products and services. Establishing a customer feedback loop is a crucial part of customer relations, ensuring the channels of communication are not only one way. If you make a change in response to a customer’s feedback, be sure to close the loop and let them know.
Conclusion
Investing in customer relations is crucial if you want your business to grow and flourish. The strategy starts with customer support, but extends into all areas of your business. You need to be reactively and proactively engaging with your customers in order to develop long-term relationships with them.
We’ve provided you with eight ways to build customer relations that last, so start implementing some of these right now.
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