There are more than 30 million businesses in the United States alone. All over the planet, business transactions are as common as speaking and breathing. Everyone conducts some sort of business every day, all over the world. So, why does managing customer relationships continue to be such a challenging area for so many of us?
In far too many instances:
• We don’t treat our customers with deference and respect.
• We are slow to respond to people who are literally trying to put money in our hands.
• We are not consistently striving for excellence in servicing our customers.
• We are not fully engaged with our customers.
• We do not listen to our customers carefully – and empathetically.
• We take loyal customers for granted.
In my opinion, it is the culture of an organization that determines whether or not that business does a high quality job taking care of its customers. Companies that are striving hard to take proper care of customers exhibit characteristics and core values such as integrity, empathy, consistent focus on and engagement with clients, responsiveness, and, in general, a service mindset.
Companies where taking proper care of customers is NOT a core value will typically exhibit cultural traits such as “profit above all,” cynicism, expedience, viewing some customers as adversaries, and – in the worst cases – outright dishonesty and contempt for the customer base! Sad to say, those cultures do exist, and I’d venture to say that we’ve all encountered them.
If you want to avoid being one of “those” companies, you should aim very high in your customer relationship management efforts. Your actions – day by day – will determine your culture, which in turn will drive your service quality and the customer experience. Through your actions and your leadership, you should strive to achieve what I call “Trust and Respect” with your clients. If they genuinely trust you and respect you (not just buy things from you!) the result will be a strong and healthy business.
This chart shows common sense actions that you can take when you interact with your customers, and the response that these actions typically engender:
- Do What You Say You are Going to Do - Consistently - Creates Trust
- Listen - Engenders Respect
- Be Proactive - Surprises them! And creates Trust
- Know Each Customer’s Needs Thoroughly - Engenders Respect
- Pay Attention to the Details - Inevitably creates Trust
- Make Certain Your Employees are Knowledgeable - Well trained employees engender Respect
- Be Meticulously Honest - the fast path to Trust
Entrepreneurship is a hard, challenging way to make a living. You do want all that effort and stress to pay off, correct? Then, be certain to AIM HIGH in managing those customer relationships!