{"id":24794,"date":"2015-10-29T11:52:14","date_gmt":"2015-10-29T11:52:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.clearbooks.co.uk\/?p=24794"},"modified":"2015-11-11T12:21:01","modified_gmt":"2015-11-11T12:21:01","slug":"how-to-maintain-great-customer-relationships","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.clearbooks.co.uk\/blog\/how-to-maintain-great-customer-relationships\/","title":{"rendered":"How to maintain great customer relationships"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Everyone knows that customers are the lifeblood of a company, which is why so many companies spend a lot of time and energy trying to maintain relationships with them.<\/p>\n<p>But the thing is, a relationship with a customer is just that \u2014 a relationship, which means that the exact thing that works for one customer isn\u2019t going to work for all of them. That being said, there are some general things to focus on to keep your customer relationships good, including:<\/p>\n<p><strong>Create clear expectations from the very beginning<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>One of the main things that causes customer relationship issues is unclear expectations, either on the part of the customers or on your part. So although it takes some time and attention to detail at first, make sure that everyone involved in the relationship knows how it\u2019s going to play out.<\/p>\n<p>This includes making it very clear what the customer will get from your product or service, what they won\u2019t get, when they need to pay you, what happens if they don\u2019t, how quickly you need feedback, your refund policy, etc. That way everybody\u2019s one the same page, and if something does go wrong, you have a clear conversation, and ideally a contract to direct the customer to.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Check in regularly<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Just like with personal relationships, there\u2019s no way that you can build a relationship off of occasional contact \u2014 your customers need to hear from you regularly so they can get a sense of your business\u2019s personality and start to develop trust with it.<\/p>\n<p>By check in, we don\u2019t mean remind them that they can buy stuff from you. You should be sending out much more nurture content (that is, stuff that benefits your customers and doesn\u2019t directly involve a sale) than marketing content. So think of ways that you can get onto your customers\u2019 radars, whether that\u2019s through blogging, social media interactions, live events, calls, or even letters. (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.clearbooks.co.uk\/2015\/10\/08\/4-ways-to-check-in-with-your-customers\/\">More tips on checking in with customers here<\/a>).<\/p>\n<p><strong>Give your customers a stake in the relationship<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Your customers aren\u2019t going to keep up a relationship with you or your business for no reason. You need to be able to give them a stake in the relationship, a reason to get engaged with it.<\/p>\n<p>There are all kinds of ways that you can do this, including giving them lots of valuable nurture content, letting them participate in surveys and prize draws, giving them regular activity reports of what the company\u2019s up to (and why that matters to them), or even giving them some say over what kinds of projects or features you focus on.<\/p>\n<p>Ideally, you\u2019ll have a mix of these, since customers will want to get involved with the company to different degrees. The key is to figure out which of your customers to focus on \u2014 those that are going to spend the most money or have the most influence on your target market \u2014 and then focus the bulk of your time and energy on getting them engaged first.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Keep it human<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>This is the most important thing to remember when it comes to maintaining customer relationships: keep things human. Don\u2019t fall into the trap of trying to maintain a relationship using a generic template or algorithm; people can always tell.<\/p>\n<p>The good thing is that since people have come to expect this more general, mediocre form of customer relationship management, when you actually come through with some genuine human interaction, it really stands out.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><em>How about you? What are your best tips for maintaining customer relationships? Or, give a shout out to some companies that have done a great job of maintaining a relationship with you in the comments below!<\/em><\/p>\n<p><i>\u00a0<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Everyone knows that customers are the lifeblood of a company, which is why so many companies spend a lot of time and energy trying to maintain relationships with them. But the thing is, a relationship with a customer is just [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":124,"featured_media":24521,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24794","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.6 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>How to maintain great customer relationships | Clear Books<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.clearbooks.co.uk\/blog\/how-to-maintain-great-customer-relationships\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_GB\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"How to maintain great customer relationships | Clear Books\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Everyone knows that customers are the lifeblood of a company, which is why so many companies spend a lot of time and energy trying to maintain relationships with them. 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