Business communications systems: Converse with your customers

Effective business communications systems are vitally important. They eliminate confusion and foster a happy and healthy workplace.

Effective business communications systems are vitally important. They eliminate confusion and foster a happy and healthy workplace. They also allow you to communicate quickly and easily with present and future clients.

Making all communication relevant and frequent is the key in both instances.

So, how do you stand out from the crowd in a competitive market? Do you aim to satisfy your customers? Is this the key to your customer service approach? Is this the culture you are creating in your business?

If you answer yes to these questions you may think you have your customer communication all sorted. You do not.

Just satisfying your customers is no longer enough. It is an old-fashioned approach that says you give your customers exactly what they want and no more.

You must aim to serve your clients for the long term. It is critical that you stay humble and grounded, and that you respect the clients who are giving you the opportunity to serve them. You must aim to develop relationships of mutual benefit by communicating with them, and this starts with providing a value proposition and following through on it.

They have chosen your business and their loyalty inclusive of their money based on what you have promised to deliver to them, so meeting these expectations must be the basis of your relationships with your customers.

Understanding what the lifetime value of your customer is also will improve your communication skills.

As a reference, if every new customer invests $10,000 and on average they return to do business with you six times, then their lifetime value is $60,000. Now how are you going to communicate with your potential customer? Changes the mindset, doesn’t it?

Once you have made the sale the key is to make them advocates to create customer loyalty.

This is when people will not leave you just because something is cheaper or fancier or newer elsewhere — they truly belong to you.

You should be building this because it is cheaper to keep a customer than it is to find a new one.

You need to keep your communication relevant and frequent. Getting results for your clients is about doing the right thing and getting beneficial feedback immediately. It is about meeting — then exceeding — their expectations. If you do this you will keep them for life. They will not need to go anywhere else. You own the real estate in their mind for the service you provide.

Creating communication systems that help you delight your customers and keep them coming back — otherwise known as retention strategies — is an important part of growing your business. Not having these systems in place means you have a strategy of “I’m going to keep finding new clients every week because I don’t look after my existing clients properly and soon I am going to go broke.”

Think about how powerful word of mouth is. We all tell friends, family and business associates about our experiences with other businesses, good and bad.

What will people be saying about your business? How are you training your present A-grade customers to be advocates for you and help you to build your benchmark business?

Stefan Kazakis is a business strategist and founder of the Business Benchmark Group.