4 Ways to Nurture your Relationship with your Customers
If you are reading this headline and thinking “Wow my business kind of sounds like my love life.” Then you are right! Maintaining a relationship with your customers takes a lot of nurturing and maintaining a customers needs. You have to do all the obligatory things that you do in a loving relationship. Treating your customers like your love interest ensures they feel special, taken care of, and their feelings and voices are respected and heard.
1. Treat your customers with the Golden Rule
The golden rule is about reciprocity and states that you should treat others the way you want to be treated. Furthermore, it’s a unilateral concept of the over all well-being of others. This is how your company should treat its customers. The way business owners should think about their customers is whether they would want to be in their shoes experiencing the service they are experiencing. IF the answer is no then you should reevaluate your business practices. Whether you have different values from your customers or different interests you have a common juncture of the process of providing a service and good to each other. Remembering this when dealing with a customer can change your dealings with one another.
2. Be Supportive
There is nothing worse than submitting an inquiry or question about a product and it getting lost in the ethers of the web. In a physical store, you are able to hunt down a sales person and you get immediate help. But in an online store, there isn’t that physical aspect that creates a sense of immediacy or urgency, consequently you as the customer, are kind of left by the wayside. Having a live chat help can easily reduce this friction with current or potential customers. However, for those who do not have this feature on their website having a customer service that has quick response times is very important. Having the customer feeling supported in their purchasing decisions can make or break whether they want to do repeat business with your online store. This means having an on-going support that extends after the transaction is completed as well.
3. Be Honest and Clear
Transparency is a hot topic in not only E-commerce but in all aspects of business. Allowing the customer to know exactly where their money is going by breaking down the costs by sales tax, shipping, product cost, etc, gives the customer a sense of security. Being clear about all aspects of the transaction is very important. An easy way to show transparency is providing receipts, shipping estimates, and clear emails sharing that information. Transparency is something that can be achieved but only with an active pursuit to do so.
4. Listen
Listening to your customers’ needs may not always be the easiest thing to do, especially when they are irate or unhappy about a purchase. However, listening to them at this crucial time may save your relationship with them to have them come back as a repeat customer. The phrase the customer is always right may not resonate with you especially when that is not always true. But listening to the concerns of your customers may give you valuable insight to why your customers are irate or having these issues with your product.
Treating your customers with these four basics can really make a business that exudes good practices and creates long lasting customers. Your customers may never be in your shoes of owning a Ecommerce business, but by showing them you understand their concerns you are more likely to have them back for repeat business. Showing compassion for your customers is the sure way to build reciprocity. Keeping strong values and exceeding your customer’s relationship expectations will help your business grow in a healthy way.
