Some agencies manage to establish and expand a strong client base over time while others ride out an unpredictable roller coaster ride that ends with them closing shop. What’s the difference? “Client relationships”.
Strong client relations ensure greater success with projects and campaigns, more loyal clients that will stick around longer, new referrals from existing ones, as well as improved brand recognition, not to mention making everyday work more enjoyable for all involved.
What characteristics define an effective client relationship? These same traits that characterize any healthy relationship: awareness, communication, empathy, reliance, accountability and honesty to name just some. In this article we, will go through the following points
How to Foster Indispensable Client Relationships
- Gather both hard and soft information
- Listening and Communicating
- Dependability
- Treat Your Customers Like People, Not Customers
- Maintain Communication
- Establish an onboarding process
- Go above and beyond with your proposal
- Conclusion:
1. Gather both hard and soft information
A successful agency-client relationship begins before you even become clients of each other. In order to craft winning proposals for potential clients, you need as much information about them as possible in order to craft winning solutions suited for them. While your solution might make an impressionable impression at first, how it’s presented with regards to both business goals as well as personalities and values of team members you will work alongside will create lasting bonds.
2. Listening and Communicating
Communication is at the core of any successful relationship. This includes business client relationships. Giving clients an outlet to express their opinions or discuss concerns is an excellent way to open dialogue. Soliciting customer feedback not only strengthens your business but will make the customer feel like their voice matters and help build more balanced client relationships.
3. Dependability
Reliability is of utmost importance in building strong business client relationships. Clients depend on businesses to deliver projects on time in order to foster trust between parties involved.
Start building strong agency-client relationships today. Successful agency-client relationships are built on virtues like trust, reliability, transparency and person ability and often yield greater outcomes for all involved. If productivity, loyalty or harmony between you and your clients seems lacking then take the steps needed to nurture strong agency-client relations immediately.
4. Treat Your Customers like People, Not Customers
Businesses exist to generate profit. But while making sales is essential to this goal, don’t lose sight of the fact that customers are more than just numbers in your spreadsheet, treating them like real people will ensure you retain long-term client relationships that bring in enough sales figures to be worth your while.
5. Maintain Communication
Once your contract or sale comes to an end, don’t allow the relationship to die along with it. Staying in contact with past clients can help build strong client relationships even if they no longer require your services, word-of-mouth travels fast, so they may recommend your business to new potential clients.
6. Establish an onboarding process
A well-developed onboarding process is key to customer retention strategies, since once you begin business there will be multiple points of contact on both sides. A seamless and transparent onboarding process sets the stage for strong client relationships that last over time.
7. Go above and beyond with your proposal
Your proposal reveals exactly what steps will be taken to meet client goals, while it’s also your opportunity to demonstrate that you have an in-depth knowledge of their company as a whole as well as individual team members’ pain points and desires. Make your presentation stand out by showing that you truly understand them both professionally as well as personally.
Conclusion:
Strong client relationships are crucial to running a successful business. By creating value for customers and earning their satisfaction, creating referrals becomes much simpler. TDTRG found that small talk can actually help develop stronger client relationships. Clients appreciate working with real people who show some personality. Without using small talk to build connections and show genuine care outside of campaigns and metrics, keeping clients connected can become much harder. If you want to strengthen client relationships and enhance referrals further, don’t hesitate to reach out to the digital strategists of TDTRG. contact us now and start the conversation.