Is Your Client Relationship Missing a Love Connection?
Change Your Mindset and Keep More Clients!
Empathy is the new hot topic, and it is especially great when you are talking about your clients. However, I like to keep it simple. If you focus on simply loving your clients, you become more attuned to their needs and create a different communication environment based on positive emotions instead of negative ones. The fact is that you and your clients are in a relationship, and a good relationship is grounded in respect, trust, and communication. If a relationship is not nurtured, there may be a surprise breakup brewing – which means you will lose a client.
It's probably not your fault. Many individuals have been trained to believe that a happy client is a silent client. The market has evolved, there is a lot of competition, and clients are savvy and will not stand to be taken for granted. Your clients are more than commodities that only require interaction when you are ready to upsell or when you need to stamp out fires to keep them happy. Just like any other relationship, your communication and engagement must be perpetual. Get excited about the many ways you can keep the sparks ignited in your relationship and help make your client's lives better.
Reignite your relationship!
First, start by adjusting your internal talk track. This can be done quickly, and it will begin to change how you and your team think about and interact with your clients. It's a great starting point for putting the romance back into the relationship while working on the second part.
Here are a few examples:
The second step is to create a solid client communication strategy. The goal is to develop a document that outlines specific goals for the variety of ways you plan to engage with clients and why. This will become your blueprint to keep track of what is working and what is not. Then use your blueprint to build content and activities focused on encouraging trust and increasing your connection. It's a big task and requires identifying what is important and interesting to your clients. You will also need to engage and use your internal subject matter experts to help build meaningful content.
Here are some ideas to get you started:
Develop a company newsletter to keep clients informed and let them know they are on your mind. Newsletters make clients aware of what is new in the company (i.e., new products and services) in a light yet helpful format. It also gives you a forum to spotlight company culture and highlight different clients. Keep it short (most people want to scan information quickly). Create a standard template. Use a bulleted format to share information or curate information that has already been created; just be sure to include the appropriate credits.
Develop a company newsletter to keep clients informed and let them know they are on your mind. Newsletters make clients aware of what is new in the company (i.e., new products and services) in a light yet helpful format. It also gives you a forum to spotlight company culture and highlight different clients. Keep it short (most people want to scan information quickly). Create a standard template. Use a bulleted format to share information or curate information that has already been created; just be sure to include the appropriate credits.
Send surveys so you can see who does and, more importantly, does not engage. Surveys let your clients know that you are interested in their opinion, but they also help you get insight into potential challenges. Creating surveys that allow you to get to the painful truth is invaluable. They give you access, awareness, and suggestions directly from users of your solutions or services.
Educational webinars help establish you and your organization as an overall industry authority. Additionally, clients appreciate the free access to education, especially if they have credentialed staff that can get CEU from your courses. You become a credible source that clients look to, which increases your value from their perspective.
Orchestrate roundtables and use that information to share with clients (and learn what's on their minds). Roundtables provide a double bonus. Not only will you hear how your clients feel about a topic, but you can also identify commonalities related to problems. This information will help you improve your products and services and develop additional information based on your clients' knowledge gaps and needs.
Maintaining continual outreach can be time-consuming and challenging, especially if you have a small staff. If you don't have the bandwidth, get help setting up templates, hire experienced content writers or work with an industry marketing consultant. The good news is that there are ways to fill in the gaps to help support your efforts and spread the love.
Catherine Valyi