How to develop fantastic relationships that will help your business to thrive

In a previous blog post, we looked at why you should swap your spreadsheet for a CRM system. One of the main reasons is that a CRM system is a fantastic tool for developing business relationships with clients and prospective clients. Developing these relationships will result in an increase in clients and growth in your business so you can see why it is so important. But what are the different ways in which we can develop these important relationships?

Let’s look at 4 ways in which you can create and maintain wonderful business relationships.

1) Engage with your audience

When establishing business relationships, a great starting point is to consider your audience and identify how you may start to engage with them.

There are lots of ways in which you can do this. Face-to-face communications are perfect for starting to develop relationships. You may want to look out for local networking events. This might be an informal breakfast networking session or you may get the chance to give a talk at an event. Looking out for these opportunities and putting yourself out there can be really powerful.

Or why not share your knowledge and expertise by publishing content via social media channels? This could be in the form of a blog post or perhaps links to useful articles that you have come across – helping and supporting others is a useful way of engaging with your audience.

These initial interactions are important as they are the starting point in relationship-building. It is crucial that you keep track of prospects so you can follow them up as necessary. A great way to do this is by storing useful information within a CRM system – you can also then schedule reminders for future communications.

2) Let people know about what you do – always having the customer in mind

When you are engaging with your audience, you should carefully consider how you are communicating with them.

To do this, put yourself in your customers’ shoes. Communicate with your audience in a way that says how your business can help them or perhaps solve a particular problem that they may have. For example, we could tell you about how great we are at designing bespoke CRM systems. Alternatively, we could tell you about how we offer systems and solutions that will help your business to succeed and that are perfectly tailored to your needs – you see the difference?

When you are communicating with people, remember it is a two-way process. What can be really powerful is to ask probing questions and listen carefully to the responses. You can then gain customer intelligence and tailor your communications with people in such a way that makes people realise exactly what your business can do for them. People will then start to develop trust in you and your company.

How you communicate what you do will have a real impact on the relationships that you will develop with people – you will start to really understand your prospects, gain their trust, build your brand and then, fingers crossed, they will become customers.

3) Keep in regular contact

Okay, you are regularly engaging with your audience, you are letting them know how your product/services can help them and the relationships are starting to form. Prospects are converting to customers so you now need to think about how you can provide an excellent service so they will keep coming back for more.

You need to continue to get to know your customers so keep up with the regular communications. As you get to know them better, make notes of what you are learning about them. It’s good to remember that the small details that you pick up about someone can really help you to get to know someone. For example, if someone mentions that they are going on holiday, you may want to set yourself a reminder to ask them about it when you next see them. If they then tell you all about their exciting hikes in the Alps, you are starting to pick up even more information about them – you are now really getting to know someone and building up a great customer profile – this can make all the difference.

Think about the different ways in which you can regularly communicate with your customers. You may share an insightful article with someone or you might send out a monthly newsletter. You might prefer a more informal catch up over a coffee. Why not use a CRM to help you with this by scheduling reminders for communications and then storing a record of the outcomes of them.

So, keep in touch with your customers and develop fantastic relationships with them – this can also result in people recommending your business to others – a great way of getting even more customers. You may also want to think about how you can encourage these referrals and how you might reward customer loyalty.

4) Ask for and respond to feedback

A great way of engaging with your customers is by asking for their feedback. It is good to show people that you value their opinions. Your customers are in an ideal position to help you to develop what you are offering – they can very often identify areas for development that you may not have thought of.

Asking for feedback and acting on it is also perfect for developing your brand. You may have seen those ‘you said, we did….’ comments – what an excellent way of relating to your customers and putting them at the heart of what you do.

If your prospective customers have access to positive reviews and testimonials about your business, this will encourage people to do business with you. I am sure you know yourself that when you research a product or a company and you find lots of 5-star reviews, it can give you real faith in the company and the brand.

So, take advantage of different opportunities to get customer feedback, keep a record of the results and identify the best ways to respond to it. Feedback is essential for the growth of any business.

As you can see, there are lots that you can do to build effective business relationships that will work wonders for your business. With all the different interactions that you will have, you will need to keep a clear and accurate record of them whilst they are fresh in your mind. Our CRM system will be your best friend when it comes to facilitating how can develop the relationships. It is also worth considering investing in a bespoke system so you can have specific fields to store the data that your business needs – investing in such a system can pay dividends in the long-run as you see your business grow.

Author : Mary Mason
Photo by Helena Lopes on Unsplash