What Is Customer Relationship And How Can You Improve It

Customer relationship : A firm handshake, a pleasant tone of voice, a nod – these are all gestures that can help your customer feel comfortable interacting with you in person.

But how to take care of the relationship with your clients when most of the communication happens through emails or video calls? In messages where, although everything is written or recorded, the tonality of the words can easily be misunderstood, changing the meaning or intention of the original message. 

Why You Manage Relationships With Your Customers?

The relationships you have with your customers are dynamic; They go far beyond offering different channels through which your customers can engage in direct communication with your company representatives. When it comes to managing relationships with your customer, it is vital that, regardless of the channel they choose to communicate with you, they have the best possible experience.

It is common to see companies that have highly qualified service and customer service representatives so as not to neglect all the details that make up the stages of the relationship with your customers from the moment the first contact occurs, until the closing of the business and the after sales; however, making this experience optimal at all times is a difficult process to achieve without the right tools.

Over 70% of reps say a CRM improves the way teams access customer information. Thus, by having a unified source of information, friction between teams is reduced and, most importantly, you have access to up-to-date information, which is vital to be able to correctly and sustainably manage relationships with your clients and avoid making mistakes. not forced.

Otherwise, you risk your customers leaving, getting tired of receiving wrong or confusing communications, or simply rating you poorly with their inner circle or online.

When the focus is on generic messages, the way you organize your sentences and questions becomes more predictable and empty than ever. Prioritizing the customer experience through all channels and stages has, for sure, a great impact on the value that your customers perceive from your company.

Canvas To Manage The Relationship With Your Customers

The Canvas model is a model commonly used by companies to describe in a clear and understandable way how they develop, deliver, and receive value. This model, traditionally divided into nine blocks, mainly uses three to focus on customers or the audience that is intended to be served.

The customer-focused section of the Canvas model aims to answer the following questions. You must answer:

• Of the clients: 

• • For whom does the company create value? 
  • Who are the most important clients? 
  • Who are the traditional clients? 
  • How can the clientele be segmented?

• Of the channels: 

• • How does the company communicate with customers? 
  • How are the channels integrated? 
  • What is the most efficient channel for each segment?

• Regarding customer relationships:  

  • Are the relationships with each of the customer segments the same?
  • What type of relationship exists today with each segment? 
  • How much do these relationships cost? 
  • Is that relationship correctly integrated with the customer? 
  • business model?

After defining the relationships you have with your customers and looking for strategies to integrate them with your business model and the current world, you can take advantage of the following recommendations:

• Train your staff of customer service representatives
• Learn to listen and offer solutions
• Reduce waiting times
• Customize reply messages
• Create loyalty programs
• Constantly measure and monitor
• Types of customer relationships
• Personal assistance
• Exclusive personal assistance
• self-service
• Automation
• communities

The spectrum of customer relationships offers different types, among which we find:

Personal assistance refers to the type of interaction that occurs between a member of your team of service representatives and your customers. It can be physical when it is done in the same space, or remotely, when it is carried out thanks to the presence of a means, be it a video call or email, as long as the latter is not an automated message.

Digital transformation has caused companies to invest more and more in omnichannel strategies, as customers and audiences can establish a conversation with you in many ways. Here, the customer experience must be paramount.

Exclusive Personal Assistance

Through this type of relationship with your customers, you focus on offering your customers personalized attention throughout the buyer’s journey. Usually, this process is a bit longer than the one mentioned above. 

A clear example of exclusive personal assistance is easily identifiable in the financial or banking sector, where an account or branch manager is in charge of directly assisting interested persons when they want to open an account or solve a problem.

Self-service

This type of assistance is characterized by the absence of direct relationships between companies and customers; however, the companies do offer everything necessary so that customers can attend to their needs autonomously. The best example of this type of assistance is e-commerce.

Automation

Through automation, companies use artificial intelligence integrated into the market. In these circumstances, there may or may not be a member of your service team, depending on the type of interaction your customers require.

A clear example of these interactions is chatbots, which are programmed to offer assistance to your users depending on the scenario in which they find themselves. Based on how you schedule them, there may or may not be a time when your service team takes care of continuing the interaction.