I just read a truly inspiring blog post and the relevance to readers of this site is immense. Sometimes while surfing the web, you follow a circuitous path to a post, and you know it must be karma. You follow a friend’s favorited post, and find another post with a list, and you happen to click on a list to a particular post, and BAM! The following post was the result of that journey. I can call this my Feel Good Friday post. That could become a new trend.
Sonia Simone writes the Remarkable Conversation Blog and she helps create better customer relationships with incredibly effective communication. She posted a list entitled 50 Things Your Customers Wish You Knew, which really drives home the point, with 50 sharp nails, that you must view your B2B customer relationships as real relationships. Not dollars, not points on graph, not check boxes in a CRM system, not obligations, but as people with wants, needs and desires just like yours. This goes well beyond providing solutions. You really do have to care, but more importantly, demonstrate that you care.
This approach to customers is relevant whether you sell products, services, or even serve internal customers. No matter what your job is, you have a customer. There is something that you do that is for someone else’s benefit. Before you pick up the phone for your next sales call, or contact a client with a status report, read through this list and think about your interactions from the other end of the phone. Does what you’re telling your customer or client sound ridiculous? Does it show them a lack of respect? If you know your latest last minute report will be rejected by your boss, what does that say?
So here are the first 10 points from the list, and make sure you click through to read the rest. Your customers will thank you, and will notice a change in the relationship. By reading the rest of the list on Sonia’s site, you might find other posts that inspire you like this one inspired me.
1. I don’t need you to be perfect, but I do need to know I can rely on you.
2. Telling me what you don’t know makes me trust you.
3. It means a lot when you take the time to thank me for my business or a referral.
4. You don’t need to do all that much to be a superhero. Just do exactly what you say you will do.
5. A friendly voice on the other side of the phone means more than you can imagine.
6. Your employees treat me about as well as you treat them.
7. I don’t mind spending the money, as long as I feel I’m getting real value.
8. My life is really stressful. If you can reduce that stress, you become immensely valuable to me.
9. I want to tell you what would make this relationship better for me. Why don’t you ever ask me?
10. I don’t understand a lot of the messages you send me. Can you make them clearer?
Click through to read the rest of 50 Things Your Customers Wish You Knew and come back here to let us know which one of the 50 resonates most with you and is on your list to change in your customer interactions.