As your sales and marketing teams work to cultivate new relationships with potential customers, it's important to remember the value of maintaining strong relationships with current customers. Distance can make it seem challenging to keep those relationships strong, but there are a few things you can do to stay connected. Nurturing your current customer relationships is key to keeping those customers happy with your company and the benefits it offers them. Studies have also shown that you are 14 times more likely to sell to a current customer than to a new one (YokeLocal).
In this blog post, we'll outline some tips for staying connected with customers from a distance. By the end, you should have some ideas for how your company specifically can maintain your current customer pool and provide enough customer satisfaction that they will refer your company to others.
Leverage the Technology you Have
It’s becoming more evident that digital relationships are here to stay, so now is the time to embrace them. There are various ways you can stay connected to your customers, but you must make it personable and meaningful. It also shouldn’t be a burden to the customer’s schedule—that's why we recommend using video to check-in and share relevant information to keep your customers satisfied. Connecting through video is easy, user-friendly, and your customers can view it at their earliest convenience. Consider using interactive videos to engage your customers further by including embedded interactive links that invite them to view more content. Video is a great way to keep your customers in the loop and give them a chance to respond.
That said, you shouldn’t be afraid to mix it up a bit by going back to the basics and using phone calls or emails to check in. A healthy ratio of formal and spontaneous communication is a valuable strategy to keep the benefits your company offers on your customers’ radar.
Establish Boundaries
Speaking of healthy ratios, there is such a thing as excessive or untimely communication. This is especially the case when your customers are in a different time zone. This can look different for each company, but ultimately, you and your team should set up a list of rules and stick to them--even if that means you take each customer on a case-by-case basis.
You may need to treat different customers differently. Be sure that you accommodate your customers. If that means you can’t answer their email right away, that’s okay as long as you’ve established those boundaries with them.
Have Easily Accessible Customer Service
Most customers want their questions answered efficiently and openly, and they want every interaction to be frictionless. If your team is committed to actively listening and positively responding, your customers will know that your business is determined to raise the bar. Once you’ve resolved your customers’ complaints, it’s important to follow up to ensure complete satisfaction—it’s a great way to show your customers you care about their experience.
There’s something to be said for the companies that prioritize taking care of their customers. It shows that they’re not just a company selling products, but a company run by people. So whether it’s sending flowers when you know it’s an important day for your customer or engaging with them on a personal level, your customer service team’s highest priority should be high-level customer satisfaction.
Seek Feedback
The best way to know what your customers want is to ask them. It could be eye-opening to hear from each customer about what is and isn’t working for them. You can accomplish this by either making performance reviews readily available on your website or directly sending out surveys. From there, you and your team should discuss the responses and see them as an opportunity to improve your customer relations and overall business strategy. The only thing better than listening to your customers when they ask for improvement is following through on the requests they make.
Reward Loyalty
What better way to show appreciation to your long-time customers than by showing them that they are top-of-mind? This can take the form of developing a loyalty program or sending loyal customer deals and discounts on some of your products. Acknowledging customers who stick around is not only an incentive for your customers, but it’s also a way for your company to show that it's their priority to invest in customers.
Be Active on Social Media
Social media is a great tool to show your customers the things in which your company is engaged. It’s also a place where you are accessible to everyone, so you can utilize it to answer questions and build brand awareness on the individual level. And on the worldwide level, customers are constantly reviewing and commenting on brands and experiences—if you’re engaged in this online banter, you can quickly react to negative or positive comments and resolve conflicts.
Cultivating strong virtual relationships may feel like learning a new language for some companies. Still, there are so many tools at your fingertips that make it possible to cultivate lasting relationships with your customers. By using tools like social media and video technology, you can cultivate stronger relationships with your customers from a distance. To maintain a healthy virtual relationship that encourages productive communication and actionable requests, we recommend establishing boundaries to protect your time, having easily accessible customer service, seeking feedback, and rewarding loyalty. These tips will help you create lasting relationships with your customers beyond traditional interactions despite the distance.
If you’re interested in learning more about how verbTEAMS can help your business cultivate stronger relationships with your customers, click here to schedule a demo. See how our interactive technology can help you engage with your customers!
