5 Tips for Maintaining and Enhancing Customer Relationships

.Customer Relations is integral to all businesses, regardless of industry. Being able to meet the needs of your clients are assessing their needs at a deeper level than they can express is very important. Let's delve into 5 simple ways to maintain and enhance your customer relationships:

1. Listen then Speak - How many times do we all get frustrated because the businesses we frequent do not seem to listen at all. It is important that you listen (not passively be quiet waiting for a moment to interject) in order to immediately instill confidence into your client that you are assessing their need and will provide a solution tailored to what they want. It also gives you time to understand how your client communicates; if they have spent time searching for solutions elsewhere; or if there are other issues you must address that they have not noticed as yet. 
2. Ask Questions - Clarify anything that may have been unclear or missed in your consultation with the client. It does not matter if you are selling a craft item or a service, if you fail to accurately assess their need, even if they do not verbalize it, you will lose them to a competitor. Asking questions also lets them know you were listening, and you are interested in giving them a solution, not selling whatever you have, whether it works or not. 
3. Clearly state the issue and the course of action you will take - While your services may be clearly listed in your mind and how they help clients is clear to you, it is always a good practice to reiterate how your client will be receive value from your product or service. Let them know that you are fully aware of their issue, committed to providing a solution, and how that solution will solve their problem. Do this in person, over the phone, and also in email if possible. This will also help remind you of the commitments you have made so you are not tempted to take any "shortcuts."
4. Follow-Up and solicit feedback - You may feel you have delivered the best product or service for your client, but do they agree? How can you really know unless you ask them? After delivery of your product or service is complete, give them time to really adjust to its use in their lives. Initially, they may seem excited and really happy but after two weeks find it falls short of their expectations. Instead of losing this client to a silent thought, develop a feedback form or system where you can engage them. Not only are you helping to enhance your services, you are also going above and beyond what other business owners are willing to do. Even if they find your product or service less than what they desired, they will likely give you an opportunity or referral because you are willing to accept their critique or listen to their feedback. 
5. Place yourself in their place - Too often as business owners we tend to forget that we are also consumers. Would you do business with yourself? Are you trying to squeeze the most profit out of one sale when you should be delivering more value? Do not forget that you should always treat your customers as you would like to be treated.

Inherently in business there are those customers you cannot please and they will require more than they are willing to pay. But that is NOT the majority! Take a step back and assess yourself to see what things you are doing to maintain and enhance your client relationships. Share your tips in the comment section below.

ChrissyBiz Solutions provides clients with customized, results-driven web marketing strategies. Our primary business writing duties include: article marketing,  search engine optimized web copy, blog content, social media, press releases, and newsletters  designed to drive traffic to your website and influence buyers decisions when purchasing products and services.

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5 Saturday Sins of the Serious Entrepreneur

"The will to survive is a human instinct while being determined to thrive requires discipline and superior decision making abilities." - Chrissy

 

The title entrepreneur is so distinguished and elite. But are you? Or do you just work for yourself? There is a difference! Besides working on ongoing projects and catching up on the weekends, how do you constructively use your time on Saturdays?

Bottom line is that you need to be working HARDER for your business than you would for someone else's. If your bills were X amount and your hours did not provide the salary you needed -- would you not put in overtime or work as many hours allowed by your company? Of course you would. Read on to find out about bad habits you should avoid on Saturdays.

Performing Daily Audits to Increase Your Productivity

Remaining on task is going to be dependent partly upon how well your schedule is arranged. To get there, you will have to perform daily audits and make small adjustments. This could take you a week or two, may be less. All that is required is an honest look at the way you have arranged your tasks and how they are arranged in relation to others.

This step will expose areas where you have lumped activities and areas where you need to give yourself more time. This is where 30 minute time slots will prove if they need more time on your schedule or should be moved altogether.

These daily audits are a part of another important concept in business, Continuous Improvement. How smoothly your day is running can be changed during this process and most importantly, this is where you can see any positive or negative gains and assess what you can do to change them. Depending on your craft and business, big differences in your productivity may be seen just based on when you schedule certain tasks.

So what are some criteria you should use to audit your schedule?

1. How easy is it for you to transition from one task to another?
2. Do your transitions require physical change in location or just shift in thinking?
3. Do you like the way your schedule is arranged?
4. Have any changes in your life required you to change some things around?
5. Are you seeing positive changes?

All of these questions must be considered when you perform your audits. All of them will help you take an objective look at the way your schedule is now and how it may be affecting your productivity. If you are finding that transitioning from one task to another is an issue, move it elsewhere. Schedule things together that are in close proximity OR in some cases, schedule them so that you may have a break from one task and begin one that is unrelated -- giving your brain a breather.

If you are not in love with the way your schedule is arranged, that is actually enough reason to make changes. It is your schedule and if you do not like it, you are not likely to adhere to it. Additionally, a new responsibility or external schedule shift may cause you to alter your schedule as well. Finally, do you feel positive and see positive changes in the way your workflow is going with these changes? The entire goal is to show improvement, not add more headache. Scheduling properly can make your workflow more efficient and increase your productivity. The daily audits will allow you to always make adjustments that are needed, as they come. Give yourself the flexibility to make improving your productivity an ongoing process, employing these steps systematically to see maximum results.