subject: Great Steps You Can Take In Improving Customer Relationship In These Tough Times [print this page] Improving customer relationship has become imperative in these tough times as business and sales are hit by the economic recession. For every business owner, big or small, the need of the hour is to think out of the box to improve their relationship with the customers to make them stick to their products and services. With competition very high in all sectors, one cannot leave anything to chance as that would result in an erosion of their customer base. You need to do some solid research and take out of the box decisions when every customer and every dollar counts.
You can begin by collecting more information about the customer like their age, gender and the kind of occupation they are engaged in. To get upfront information, contests and customer surveys are usually done if you can get hold of their contact information and then follow up after the sales are done. With the required information you know what type and when they bought your goods and services. It also gives you an idea if they bought them during an actual sale or during promotions and it would give you an idea about future sales and promotions.
Information like these is crucial as they form part of the customer's database that you can easily check out for improving customer relationship.
The more information you have the more you can feel the pulse of your customers as they are an integral part of your business and their swelling tribe can directly enhance your cash flow. You can always analyze the information contained in the database and use it to convert a single order into repeat orders. When a customer has ceased buying from you after the first few purchases, you need to check out the reasons that led to the first purchase.
Repeating the process would go a long way in improving customer relationship that has lapsed over time. If they got lured by hefty discounts earlier, you need to repeat some of the tactic to bring them on board once again.
When loyal customers keep buying from you at the sale price regularly, you should not rest on your laurels.
Like most other successful businesses you need to treat them like royalty and even offer special discounts to honor their loyalty to your product and services. Brick and mortar business establishments can remain open after working hours while online setups can always get customers to be their affiliates in improving customer relationship. But both business types need to provide hands-on customer service with toll free access to regular and loyal customers.
To be on track in offering customer relationship, staff has to be accessible round the clock these days. Customers may have different issues that they want resolved immediately and businesses that are always a step ahead go a long way in improving customer relationship.
