Client Relationship Building - Critical to Your Long-Term Business Success

John Vachalek - 9.14.2009 11:53 AM

Changes in the world have made Relationship Marketing to your existing client-base more important than ever. Some of these key changes include:

• Unlimited access to information and options
• Decreased overall brand loyalty
• Perceived and actual commoditization of products and services
• Blogs, rating systems, and other consumer-driven publishing platforms
• The downturn in the economy
• The trend towards the personalization of all products and services

Never before has the consumer had so much influence over the products and services they purchase.  Previously, buying decisions were based on geographic availability, the limited knowledge of what products exist, and the reach of the offering company’s advertising campaigns. Today, all products and services are pretty much available to everyone with Internet access and without any real limitations.

Consumers are being conditioned to look for the next bigger, better deal and to shop for things by becoming extremely educated / price conscious consumers.

Consumers now have an unparalleled voice in the rating and promotion of products and services. If I purchase a sub-standard product, I can rank this product poorly and express my disappointment within the online merchant’s rating system.  I may also post about my experience in my blog. I might tweet about it to my hundreds or thousands of followers and I may write about this experience on my facebook wall for the world to see.

Let’s face it, every business has disappointed clients or customers from time to time, this is inevitable.  However, in today’s world, if you are not building the relationships necessary to solicit your clients feedback, or you just do not care, the consequences can be dire.

Client Relationship Marketing can take many forms:

• Proactive, regular communications to inquire about satisfaction
• Post-purchase client surveys to gauge your performance and level of satisfaction
• Online feedback and idea sharing forms
• Online forums for your customers to actively converse
• Social Marketing forums and tools to build relationships and share ideas
• Focus groups and contests to solicit ideas and improvements

Often marketing efforts are narrowly focused on new client acquisition.  In today’s world, if you do not focus on the relationships you build with your exiting client-base, you will not be able to secure new clients, no matter what effort you put forth!!

How to Use This Information

• Make sure you have regular communications with your existing client-base
• Provide avenues and tools for continued feedback, ideas and suggestions
• Monitor the Internet for conversations in which you are mentioned and actively participate to thank people for positive statement and address any negative issues swiftly
• Focus on building a stable existing client-base who provides you with reoccurring revenues and referrals equally or more than the acquisition of new clients

Please feel free to submit your comments, experiences or input to this blog post below.

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