Building a strong relationship with your clients goes beyond good marketing.

 

Without a solid client base to support your efforts, you’ll find it hard to make money and keep growing – and that can be devastating for any small business owner who’s trying to start off on the right foot.

 

When you have a loyal group of customers, they are much more likely to buy from you again, refer others, or even become advocates. Whether it’s through email newsletters, social media sites like Twitter and Facebook, or speaking engagements at your local church/organization – building a relationship with your client or customer makes all your efforts worthwhile. 

 

Building relationships also gives you opportunities to learn how to improve on what you already do best. 

 

We have put together 5 easy to understand tips to implement in your day-to-day activities. These tips can help you build stronger and more meaningful business relationships with your customers.

 

• Be Human

“People will forget what you said. People will forget what you did. But people will never forget how you made them feel.” – Maya Angelou

 

Learn to keep things simple. Create emotional connections through storytelling. There are various benefits of storytelling for your small business. The storytelling can be in the short form via Linkedin or Twitter and even as a blog, or it could be in visual form as on Instagram or TikTok.

 

This is not about B2C (Business to Consumer) or B2B (Business to Business). It’s more about H2H (Human to Human).

 

You are selling to individuals and these humans decide on whether to buy from you or not. Communicating relevant information and utilizing personalized messages will help your customers better understand what your products and offerings are instead of the technical terms used by many companies. 

 

Get to know your customers, listen to them, and understand their pain points. When people feel heard, they will like you and eventually get to trust you. People will do business with people they like and trust. 

Forge deep connections with your customers. 

 

• Provide Value- Share Industry Knowledge and your Expertise

Have you ever needed information on something you had previously seen somewhere and just automatically know whose page to visit or where to go to find related answers to that thought other than Google?

 

Like how you are thinking of where to get the news with solid facts and brutal questions in Nigeria and ARISE TV automatically crosses your mind?

 

Yes, you should be an excellent source of relevant information.

 

Give people the ability to find information relating to your industry from your content, your page, and your website. Create a knowledge-sharing culture for people to find, share and collaborate with. Provide long-term value for your clients. Share information that will make the client understand what you do and why you do it.

 

ALSO READ: WHY SMES SHOULD FOCUS ON BUILDING COMMUNITIES

 

• Comment, Reshare, and Interact.

When you consistently respond to comments on your content post, it could be a positive or negative comment, ensure you make the client feel heard.  Make them know there’s a human behind the business that understands and is readily available to answer their inquiries. 

 

Get your platforms active. Don’t create a social profile where you’ll be inactive. Especially if it’s one where many clients are likely to interact with you and your brand. 

 

The idea of creating a social media profile is to make your brand more accessible to your clients. Interact with them, listen to and address their complaints, ask for their suggestions and opinions on new products, etc. 

 

• Seek Feedback— And Respond Quickly.

As a small business owner, you should strive to offer the best possible services to your customers. But just collecting feedback will not help you build a long-lasting relationship unless you actually take that feedback and use it to improve.

 

Ask your clients how better you can serve them and act on it. It shows that you listen to them, respect them and you want them to remember your business for providing the utmost customer satisfaction.  

 

• Show Up Everday

The consistency that comes with showing up every day, providing value, and showing your work is one of the best ways to build a strong relationship with your audience. 

 

Showing up every day is the best thing you can do for your business and your platform. 

 

80% of success is just showing up and there are different ways to show up as a small business owner on social media. It shows that you have passion and focus.

 

Use these 5 tips to build strong client relationships for your business.

Finding a new client is an important factor for any small business owner. But you also need to focus on managing and maintaining your existing clients if you want your small business to thrive long-term.

 

Whether you just met them or they were your customers years ago, building a lasting, trusting relationship with your client is one of the most important parts of success in business.

 

Do you or your brand need help with managing client relationships?

You can send us a message to help foster your online engagement.