When you take the time to invest in your clients over the long term, it’s going to pay in so many ways. For example, simply looking for holiday gift ideas for clients and sending them something special during that time of year can make your clients feel seen by you. As a result, they’re going to be more likely to be loyal to you.
Everyone wants to do business with people they like and with those who they feel a connection with. Humans are programmed to thrive on personal interactions.
Also, when facing challenging economic situations outside of your control, if you’ve built strong relationships with customers, you can worry less because they’re likely to keep buying from you as long as you’re offering them value.
The following are ways to cultivate strong, personal relationships with your clients, regardless of your industry or business.
1. Get to Know Their Preferences
While it’s not entirely relevant for businesses in all industries, if you’re a service provider, in particular, take time to get to know your clients at the start of a project. They’re all going to have different preferences, goals, and needs.
When you initially start on a project with a new client, ask them why they’re hiring you and what they want from the relationship. Ask about both their short- and long-term goals and their preferred style of working together.
You can also establish preferred channels for communication.
Some clients will like an old-fashioned phone call, while others will prefer email or digital communication.
How do they want you to submit project updates and completed work?
Always make sure that you’re setting and managing expectations. This is whether it’s your first project working together, or you’ve worked together several times.
For example, at the start of every new project, go over rates and pricing, anticipated timelines, and any boundaries one or both of you may have. For example, you might not answer emails on weekends, or they may prefer that you don’t call them after a certain time.
You’ll sometimes hear people say when they start a new relationship with a client, they gather both hard and soft information.
Hard information includes things like business goals and challenges, the software they’re currently using, and budget.
Soft information is more along the lines of what the client sees as success and what their ultimate outcome would be. You can also learn more about their future goals in addition to this particular project or contract and what makes them unique from their competitors.
2. Speak the Language of Your Client
People who successfully form long-term client relationships tend to learn how to speak the “language” of their clients. That means that they gauge the style, preferred method of communication, and formality of the person they’re speaking with. This is touched on briefly above when discussing how important it is to establish preferred channels of communication.
Every interaction needs to be modified based on the idea that each person is going to communicate differently.
A personal relationship for one client is going to be completely different for another.
Some people just want straightforward, facts-driven conversations, while others want to have more informal conversations. Let your client lead the direction of the conversation and learn how to use their communication style in your interactions.
3. Recognize Big Events in Their Lives
When you’re building relationships with clients, you want them to feel like you’re authentically sharing in their successes and big moments in their lives. If they’re getting married or have a major personal milestone coming up, maybe you send a gift or card recognizing it.
You can also celebrate personal achievements, like a work anniversary.
The best way to know if a client has something big coming up in their life is to simply listen.
Even a little gesture is going to be remembered by your client because they’re going to think about how you were thinking of them during key parts of their life.
4. Show Appreciation
There are a lot of ways you can show appreciation to your customers, but the goal in doing so, no matter your strategy, is to link to your overall business success. That makes it more specific and authentic.
You can show appreciation by sending thank-you notes, offering reward programs, providing special discounts and details, or whatever you think is going to work best for your customer base.
5. Consistently Communicate
Whether you have a retail business and you’re checking in to see how your products are doing for your customers, or you’re a service provider, communicate often with your important clients.
Be consistent and clear throughout the time you’re working with someone.
If there are issues that need to be resolved, address them quickly.
6. Be a Positive Person
People want to be around positive individuals. This isn’t just true in business — it’s true throughout life.
You’re someone who should be a positive force in the life of your customers. You want to add to their lives, not take away. No matter how much stress you might be feeling, you want to put on a positive face for clients.
You also want to be passionate and enthusiastic and convey this in everything that you do.
Similarly, your employees need to have the same positive attitude.
If you work to create a positive workplace culture, then your employees are more likely to then come off as more positive in their interactions with your customers.
7. Ask for Feedback and Listen
Finally, when you ask for feedback from your customers, then you’re creating a two-way relationship and conversation that’s going to feel more personal to them. You’re also showing that you think their opinion is valuable and that you want to offer them the best service possible.
When customers give you feedback, don’t just listen — implement it into your business. You may be able to improve your offerings or become more innovative when you’re integrating customer feedback into your business.
