be a friend to your customer

Of recent when working with clients I've realized to focus on customer relationship building where the process begins with having an emotional (in a good way) element when you establish a connection with your clients.

So what is good relationship building?
Developing and maintaining a win-win partnership where both parties gain, is the essence of a good customer or client relationship. When you have a good and trustworthy relationship with your clients, you're on the path to growth and profitability. Why do I say that? Well, your customer serves as an important reference for new prospects. Their happiness and level of satisfaction serves as a marketing tool (I've seen this happen). Also, the time taken to attract a new client is shortened which might lead to lower costs for repeat business.

The ability to build good customer relationships depends on three things:

• product knowledge
• people skills; and
• your attitude

Building the relationship
To engage a customer, you need to have good product knowledge, so read all the material you can possibly get on your product, and I think using it is definately a plus! By having the right information and tools on the product, you will feel empowered to handle most questions.

Your soft skills or people skills, and your positive attidude help you in connecting with the customer. Show your sincerity in identifying what your customers value.

I hear this term quite often where "listen to your customer as opposed to merely hearing him". Where you seek to understand them from their frame of reference. Listen carefully to what they say and notice hints they about their interest.

Maintaining the relationship
To maintain good customer relationship, we need to store some data on customers' interest in order to target them selectively. I also believe that simple gestures like sending a greeting card or a thank you card do help strengthen the relationship. Also attending to their complains and attending to them punctually also do help.