The benefits of establishing a good relationship with your customers
A good relationship with customers can provide numerous advantages to a company. Here are three great reasons why you should build a good relationship with your customers:
- A better relationship facilitates sales
- A better relationship makes word of mouth advertising more likely
- A better relationship means customers will give you the benefit of the doubt.
This is the most important reason why you should develop a great relationship with your customers. When customers believe that you share many common traits with them, they are more likely to buy and support your business efforts. When there is less rapport, sales must be made solely on the rationale for buying, and that’s simply not how most customers buy. Instead, most customers buy for emotional reasons and then use logical reasons to justify their decisions to others. With more reporting, the sale has a higher probability of closing.
Customers who think highly of your business are excellent sources of referrals, leads, and testimonials. These positive reports are good for encouraging potential customers that your business might have trouble reaching or influencing. This form of advertising is especially powerful, as it can work for your business many times over and at little or no cost. So a small initial investment in a good relationship can pay dividends for much longer than you might think. Another benefit of good word-of-mouth advertising is that customers who are favorably inclined toward your business will defend you from customers who might have negative things to say about your business.
If your business continues long enough, you will eventually make some sort of misstep. When customers share a good relationship with a company, they are likely to overlook minor issues if they believe they are one-time exceptions that won’t happen again in the future. On the other hand, if a company has already lost a lot of customer goodwill, then not only is it more difficult to explain the failures, but customers may also actively seek other problems with your company. Since these problems can be avoided with a good customer relationship, it should be maintained as much as possible.
Simply put, when you have a good relationship with customers, sales are easier to make, positive word of mouth is likely to spread, and you generally get the benefit of the doubt should a problem arise. Since there are so many benefits, every business should have a plan to improve the relationship and goodwill among their customers.
Copyright 2010, by Marc Mays
