Peter R. Garber - 101 Ways to Build Better Relationships with Your Customers

101 Ways to Build Better Relationships with Your Customers

Peter R. Garber

HRD Press, Inc.

Amherst, Massachusetts

Copyright 2007, Peter R. Garber

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or used in an information storage or retrieval system, without prior written permission from the author.

ISBN: 978-1-59996-050-0

Cover design by Eileen Klockars

Production services by Anctil Virtual Office

Editorial services by Sally M. Farnham

Your relationships with your customers can be the most important factor to your success in business. More business is gained or lost as a result of a suppliers relationship with the customer rather than as a result of their ability to provide a quality service or product. However, as in your dealings with other people in other aspects of your life, building a good relationship with your customers can take a long time to build and only a short time to break down. One incident can damage what you worked hard for a long time, possibly even years, to build. There are many different ways to build stronger working relationships with customers. However, there are no absolutes, no necessarily right or wrong ways, and no shortcuts. What might work effectively with one customer could be detrimental or even destructive to your relationship with another customer.

You need to get to know your customers and what is most important to maintaining good working relationships with them. Building better customer relationships is not just something that would be nice to doit is something that you must do if you expect to be successful in business today.

The competition is getting tougher every day. There will always be a competitor out there just waiting for an opportunity to get an in with your customers. By not developing relationships with your customers, you could be opening the door for the competition to come in and take them away.

Building stronger relationships with customers can be very satisfying in many ways. It provides new opportunities to be of service and to learn what you need to be focused on not only today, but in the future as well. By getting to know your customers better, you also learn more about them and their business. The more you learn and understand about the customer, the less likely someone else could even be able to take away your customers business. Your relationships with your customers can be the best investment in your business or career that you can ever make.

All of the 101 Ways to Build Better Relationships with Your Customers described in this book are universal in nature. That is, they would apply regardless of your business or that of your customer, if you provide a service or a product to the customer, if you or your customers are a large or small company, or if you have been in business a long time or are just starting out. These 101 Ways are all about people and how they react or respond to others. Most of the 101 Ways deal with common courtesies that anyone, regardless of the situation, would appreciate. Is there any reason why you wouldnt or shouldnt treat your customers with these same common courtesies? In addition, most of the 101 Ways deal with common sense. Again, is there any reason why you shouldnt exercise common sense with your customers?

Knowing and understanding your customers is getting increasingly difficult today as organizations are becoming more and more complex. The better your relationship with customers, the better you will be able to understand them and their ever changing needs. The world is also changing at an increasingly accelerated pace. So too are most businesses, including your customers. Your organization is probably changing as well. Staying in touch with all these changes requires extra effort and attention on your part.

You are the one who must take the initiative and responsibility for maintaining and building the relationship between you and your customer. If you depend on the customer to be the one to be most concerned about your working relationship together, it might not happen. Your customers both want and expect you to be the one to initiate and nurture your business relationship. Your relationship with the customer is a critically important aspect of your business and success. Unfortunately, this is something that is often overlooked or ignored. Customers are the key to your successthey are why you are in business. An important link to your customers is your working relationship with them. If you lose this relationship, you can also lose their business and, ultimately, your livelihood.

Building better relationships with customers goes far beyond what is typically thought of as meeting this objective. It is much more than just inviting the customer to dinner or for a round of golf. It goes beyond just entertainment. This may indeed be important to your relationship with the customer, but your relationship involves much more as you will see in these 101 Ways to Build Better Relationships with Your Customers.

This book includes many important and useful suggestions to help you build better relationships with your customers. Your working relationship is actually based on how well you meet the customers requirements, and your customer undoubtedly has many requirements. All of these requirements are important to your customers. This book is really about how to meet these requirements. In fact, it could have been called, 101 Ways to Meet the Requirements of Your Customers! This book goes beyond what is typically expected of you, but can make such an important difference. These 101 Ways are what can make the difference between ultimately keeping your customers business and losing it to your competition.

This book is divided into six sections: Customer Expectations, Problem Solving Together, Communicating with the Customer, Understanding the Customer, Supporting the Customer, and Achieving Results. You can use these sections to find the general topics you are interested in learning more about.

You can use these 101 Ways to Build Better Relationships with Your Customers to develop training programs to deal with difficult situations, solve problems with your customers, create more effective customer service strategies, and help reach your sales and marketing goals. There is a brief exercise included in each of these 101 Ways designed to help teach and reinforce the learning points presented.

The bottom line is that 101 Ways to Build Better Relationships with Your Customers will help you better serve your customers. Any time you have contact with a customer should ultimately help you build a better relationship. This is the goal that you need to continuously work toward every day you are in business. After all, that is what your business is based onyour relationships with your customers.

Good luck and keep building better relationships!

Part 1
Customer Expectations

Try as Hard to Keep the
Customers Business as You Did to
Get it in the First Place

You probably worked very hard to get your customers business in the first place. You spent a great deal of time explaining to the customer the many benefits of your product or service and of doing business with you. You learned about the customers needs and how you could meet their requirements. You promised that you would deliver the quality that the customer demanded on time, every time. Now that the sale has already been made, you need to try just as hard to keep the customers business as you did to get it in the first place. You need to look at every interaction with the customer as if you are trying to get their business for the first time. You need to work just as hard to keep their business as you did to get it in the first place.