Are you interested in using relationship marketing to retain customers? Sustaining a business requires keeping your customers interested, but building relationships with clients is a complex task. You’ll need usable strategies for maintaining good customer relationships. Although relationship marketing takes time and effort, it’s one of the best measures you can take if you want to keep your customers coming back for more.
Today’s consumers often reevaluate their relationships with brands. Impressing your customers with expert relationship marketing can make a huge difference for your business, boosting long-term revenue and creating stronger brand awareness. Here are some of the reasons positive customer relationships are so vital:
If you’re wondering how to improve your relationship marketing, following best practices will help you do so effectively. Here are 12 things you should do to strengthen your customer relationships — with both new and retained customers.
Treat all new customers equally, especially if you do business online. The nature of the internet makes it tough to tell who will spend more over a longer period of time. Making assumptions might cause you to focus your efforts in the wrong places. Clients love to feel important and valued — nurture all new clients as if they were gold. Chances are, your efforts will pay off. Once someone proves their value as a customer, you can foster an ongoing relationship.
Make the process to become and stay a customer as easy as possible. Huge barriers, like long online forms or automated phone systems, decrease the likelihood of repeat business. Remove these barriers so customers feel it’s convenient and easy to connect with you.
Once you have a working relationship with a new client or customer, break them up into categories by the frequency and monetary value of their purchases. Doing so can help you decide which customers to focus on with your relationship marketing program. You can further categorize customers based on their behaviors, needs and preferences.
Personalizing the experience for your loyal customers will let them know how much you appreciate them. There are many ways to personalize your relationships. You could offer advice or customize your packaging for customer needs and preferences. Consumers feel a sense of loyalty to those who value them. Showing them you know and understand their needs proves to them you care.
Customers who stick around should feel appreciated and rewarded for their loyalty, not like they’re second-fiddle to the newbies. Long-time customers deserve special treatment, extra services and the occasional discount. Consider offering limited-time free shipping or upgraded printing. Or create a “refer-a-friend” loyalty reward program as a “thank you” to your customers.
One of the easiest ways to build relationships with and retain customers is to maintain an ongoing conversation with them. Ask customers what they want and show them you’re eager to listen to their concerns. Utilizing social media channels is a great way to foster this engagement.
You’re more likely to retain a customer if you initiate a relationship program with them as soon as they become a customer. So if you’re starting a new program, your efforts will pay off more with new customers.
Provide space for feedback and learn to accept and utilize criticism. Listen to your clients, especially your repeat clients. They’ll help you recognize and learn from your mistakes, which will benefit your company in the long run. When you make a mistake, offer an apology and a solution. Be open to checking and responding to your reviews to show you’re engaged, and further that engagement on social media or via email, where you can also ask for feedback.
Try to think from your client’s perspective. What problem are you solving? What might be the customer’s follow-up needs after buying your product or service? Putting yourself in your client’s shoes will allow you to anticipate their needs. The ability to solve both present and future issues for your clients will help you build a stronger relationship now and in the future.
For instance, a baker who sells wedding cakes might also sell serving knives or cake toppers. By anticipating their customer’s needs, they can foster a stronger and longer-term relationship while increasing the revenue they earn from each customer.
While you might be able to squeeze a few extra dollars out of a transaction with misleading terms, it’s also a fast way to lose customer loyalty. Always be transparent — include clear, easy-to-understand conditions in your contracts. Be upfront and concise when answering customer questions. Consumers appreciate honesty in a business — 94% of customers in a study said they’d be repeat customers if a business practiced transparency.
A simple, thoughtful “thank you” can go a long way. Including an authentic and personalized sign of your appreciation can help you retain customers. A quick “thank you for choosing us” note shows customers how important they are to you. You can keep it simple and sweet, and it’ll do the trick.
Interacting with your business should be a unique experience for your consumers — a customized experience will make your brand memorable. Every step of doing business with you should be exciting and novel, from browsing your product selection to placing an order and receiving a product. In the age of e-commerce, every detail is too important to overlook.
The look and feel of your shipping boxes should contribute to your customized brand experience. Personalized shipping boxes present multiple opportunities. They give you the chance to build brand awareness during the entire transit process, letting you show off your logo, color scheme and branded images.
Choosing custom boxes also puts your best foot forward with the consumer. You can choose a box style best suited to showcase your products — presentation is important. You can also pick a custom size and box strength to ensure your items make it to the consumer undamaged. While you can’t control every aspect of the product shipping process, custom boxes can help you preserve your merchandise and keep your customers happy.
Forming and maintaining positive customer relationships has a marked impact on a business’s ability to succeed. Doing so will help you retain customers, earn more revenue from each customer and boost your word-of-mouth marketing. A few best practices will yield the strongest results.
Ensure each customer feels important, make it as easy as possible to work with you and always reward customer loyalty. You should also pay close attention to your customers — ask them for feedback, anticipate their needs and keep a conversation going.
Another vital aspect of relationship marketing is creating a customized experience. Doing business with your brand should be unique from start to finish. One way to set yourself apart from your competitors is to use custom shipping boxes. At Custom Boxes Now, we can help you create custom boxes for your products. Since we do every part of the process in-house, we produce high-quality results with a fast turnaround. For over 60 years, we’ve been helping brands like yours create custom shipping boxes.
Use our custom box configurator to design your brand’s boxes today!
