Customer relationship is a strategy to customer enchantment and customer loyalty through clear communication between a company and its audience.
It covers the entire sales cycle and aims to create true bonds between the customer and the company, transforming consumers into brand advocates.
In this article, we’ll see what customer relationship is, its benefits, and how to build it.
What is customer relationship?
Customer relationship is a concept that covers all touchpoints between a company and its customers. It refers to practices, strategies, and technologies used by companies to manage and analyze interactions with customers throughout their entire lifecycle in order to improve customer satisfaction and increase loyalty and retention.
What is customer relationship management?
Customer relationship management refers to actions performed to measure process effectiveness and promote continuous improvement aiming to ensure that all departments in contact with customers are able to provide humanized and personalized customer service.
A good customer relationship management requires:
- Definition of clear goals and performance indicators that help understand whether the team achieves expected results;
- Understanding of processes and how they can be improved;
- Customer service training;
- Proper tools to provide technological support.
Importance of building strong relationships with customers
New technologies are causing changes in all relationships, including consumer relations. Then, as customers have more access to information and new products are released all the time, it’s crucial to offer a differentiated service that makes your life easier.
This is important because customer relationship directly affects consumer perception and brand reputation, which are essential elements for customer loyalty.
Also, this strategy facilitates the team routine, generates savings for the company, and provides relevant information to support the customer journey and marketing actions.
Customer relationship approaches
There are many ways to relate to customers and they can all be used to connect with your audience and encourage brand loyalty. The main ones are described below:
1. Face-to-face customer service
Considered one of the most efficient approaches in customer relations, face-to-face interaction allows you to demonstrate empathy, better understand the desires and pains of your audience, and provide a more differentiated experience.
2. Telephone customer service
Telephone service allows customers to speak directly to a company’s representative and make questions, place orders, or file a complaint. But for an efficient telephone service, problem-solving training must be provided to the service team.
3. Social media customer service
Social media have become essential for good service. Therefore, companies must have their own pages on platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn to connect with customers, answer questions, solve problems, and receive feedback.
4. Customer service email
Email allows companies to track and have a history of communications with consumers. It also enables companies to provide detailed answers to customers.
5. Customer service AI chatbot
Artificial intelligence chatbots are becoming more and more popular in customer service as they provide initial support for frequently asked questions or simple problems, leaving humans free to focus on more serious issues.
6. After-sales support
After-sales support is essential for customer relationship, as it helps customers with requests for technical support, warranty claims, product exchange or return, and complaints, so this type of support can significantly increase customer satisfaction and loyalty.
Read more: Five steps to help you handle customer complaints
Benefits of investing in customer relationship strategies
Now that you know the main customer relationship approaches, it’s time to understand the benefits of investing in these strategies:
- Deeper knowledge about consumer behavior;
- Provision of personalized solutions to meet every customer’s needs;
- Increased customer loyalty;
- Fast problem solving;
- Identification with the brand;
- Customer trust in the company;
- Understanding of business weaknesses and strengths and areas of improvement;
- Creation of more sales opportunities;
- Revenue growth.
Keys to building a good customer relationship
Investing in customer relationships is critical to a successful business. Therefore, we present below some keys to improving customer relationship.
-
Make sure your customers have received what was promised
One of the most important ways to improve customer relationship is to check whether customer expectations have been met.
-
Nurture customer relationship after a sale
After a sale, your company should nurture customer relationship with frequent contact to retain customers whether through after-sales or relationship marketing actions.
-
Understand your customer behavior
Understanding customer behavior will help you define the profile and characteristics of your audience, allowing the development of aligned actions and personalized service.
-
Show your brand is reliable
Demonstrate professional behavior, experience, and transparency in work processes to reinforce your authority and credibility.
-
Solve problems quickly
Provide efficient service and use strategies and processes that offer fast solutions.
-
Listen to feedbacks carefully
Listen to what your customers have to say and find out how you can improve service, eliminate errors, and optimize processes.
-
Plan offers and benefits
Provide exclusive benefits to customers, such as a first order discount or a special offer in their birthday month, that is, make your customers feel special.
Conclusion
In this article, you understood the importance of investing in customer relationship strategies to provide an experience that exceeds consumer expectations.
Now it’s time to choose a software solution to manage these operations.
With Milvus, you increase your company’s communication efficiency. Our Omnichannel Management system offers features to support customer service across different channels, increasing satisfaction and strengthening relationships.
Contact our representatives and take a free trial.
