Phil Thompson, head of BPIF Business, considers customer relationships and provides some basic ground rules on building the most profitable ones.
Love them or hate them, the fact remains that in some capacity we all need customers. From experience, it is much easier to sell to existing customers compared to finding new ones, so we understand that effort must be made to develop these relationships in order to generate healthier and more profitable sales for the business.
Customers come in all different shapes and sizes, so it would be optimistic to think that focusing on one area of customer service would suffice in pleasing them all, but alternatively, having a specific way of dealing with each customer can lead to inconsistency. Therefore certain ground rules need to be implemented, but with some measure of in-built flexibility.
It is also important to remember that the following list of ‘rules’ is not in any particular order - the areas that business focus on in this notoriously complex and sensitive area have to be driven in the end by what matters most according to the customer. What you think the customer wants and what they actually want can be completely different
Building relationships
Building and maintaining relationships is not just the responsibility of the sales department. Having one contact for a customer can be a high risk strategy as if that person was to leave, suddenly the relationship has gone. Good customer service is down to everyone in the business, from employees who have day-to-day contact with clients, to the finance department and even the back office staff who are only seen if the customer comes to the premises.
Understanding the needs of your customer
This is more than just being able to make a list of requirements. With all areas of customer service a certain amount of pro-active work needs to be carried out. Listening carefully and not making presumptions about what has been asked for is just the start. Being able to communicate with them, explaining possible options they may not considered and examples from previous successful products can provide them with a real value-added service.
Celebrate your successes
Be proud about what you have achieved; self publication is often pushed to the bottom of the list of business needs, but by entering business awards and other industry events to show how you are developing the business will give credence and support to your claims with the customer. It will also send a message both internally and externally that the business is proud of its achievements and committed to improving further.
Keeping in contact
This is always going to be a balancing act. Often when the work dries up, companies will go through their databases and see who have done work with them previously, to check if they have any potential work. Having structured and regular contact with customers seems to be the perfect situation, however, constant contact can often lead to a break down not a deepening in relations. So having something interesting to say is essential as is measuring how often you have contacted the client.
Satisfaction feedback
No news is good news is not an effective way to gauge feedback. Often it is difficult to get companies to go through a full feedback form, but finding out how they have found the product, what they liked, even what they did not like, will mean that there are no nasty surprises down the road. It is too late to go back and ask these questions after repeat business has been lost, feedback needs to be sought quickly after completion even if it is just a couple of sentences. Also, this is not the end of it, when positive feedback is received, share it with the staff, good news stories should be enjoyed with the whole workforce.
Measure everything
It is only when you are able to visualise that you can spot trends or areas of the business that can be improved. Documenting complaints like why they have complained, the cost of the complaints seems like a lot of hard work, but if done efficiently by improving the process of feedback gathering, will in the end tighten up the production process, plus it will highlight where in the business further training or performance will need to be managed.