Relationship Building: The Client View

The question on how to build an effective client relationship is central to business and management.  To build a good relationship you need to differentiate yourself from your competition.  When your client is considering your company to partner with you need to be able to clarify what makes your company superior to any other company, and what factors will make your client more suitable for the business.

Communication is one of the most important factors in gaining that client relationship.  If you can communicate the initial prospects to your client it establishes a personal connection.  If you contact prospects via email, sending information about industry changes, research reports, or case studies, that makes the correspondence personal.  Mentioning things of personal interest, such as recent accomplishments to things like favorite sports teams shows you are interested in them and not just their buying dollar. Again, think relationship. The client relationship should be thought of as long-term.

“When registrants receive a personalized email as opposed to an automated response-especially when they have registered interest in a certain offer or service-it has improved response rates. At the very least it helps our reputation, so that if a potential client is unable to commit at this time, they are far more likely to return to us when they have the budget in the future or to refer us to others.” – One RainMaker Blog reader.

Your skills and ability to perform are not what sells to your client.  Your clients need to feel something when they come in.  Persuasion is not just in a logical sense of how well we can do certain tasks, its more of an emotional experience that they feel that they can put their heart into the company rather than their brain.  The same structure of client building is applied to Greenville College.  For me, Greenville College is expensive, the education may not be of the highest level, and the functionality has a few flaws.  However, my choosing of going to Greenville wasn’t based off of the school.  It was based off how I felt about the school.  The level of comfort was more important than the potential gains it offered.  Greenville College followed these rules in building its client relationship with me.

1. Be Patient in Building the Relationship

2. Get to Know their Client

3. Go the Extra Mile

4. Treat Every Client as the Most Important

5. Respond Promptly

6. Be More than an Email

7. Always Summarize Next Steps

– Forbes

In the end, I was sold on Greenville.  They understood what it took to get students here and how to build up a trust with them.  Even the students that leave Greenville to go somewhere else often look back and wish they never left.  This happened with two of our tennis team members my freshman year.  They both left because they felt the college just didn’t have enough for them.  Come to find out they have had a much worse time at the other college because they do not follow those seven steps that Greenville does.

“I think a good friend, to me, is all about trust and loyalty. You don’t ever want to second-guess whether you can tell your friend something.” – Lauren Conrad.

Trust and Loyalty.  Your company may be the most qualified company on the planet, but how far can you go if your clients feel they can’t trust you?