For any business operating in the dog eat dog world that is the market of the 21st century, they will be fully aware of the mutually beneficial relationship that exist between them and their clientele.
Without the customers, the business has nobody to buy their products or service but, without the business, the customers’ needs are not serviced either.
A recent study by the IDC, which sample included 24,000 consumers from 12 different countries, discovered that 25 per cent of users will be willing to leave a review after receiving good customer service. Furthermore, 18 per cent would go onto buy from the company again, regardless of the price.
Delivering good customer service is worth far more than establishing a positive reputation for your business. The Ombudsman Services report predicts that the UK loses approximately £37bn every year thanks to poor customer service.
Get the customer in the door and you’ve just won half the battle. How then, do you successfully get them to return, particularly if they are a high-end client?
Below we examine the various ways in which you can attract and retain high end clients.
Understand Your Customer
You wouldn’t serve a main of sirloin steak with peppercorn sauce at a vegan convention because, quite frankly, its distasteful and otherwise inappropriate — you’d opt for a beetroot and red onion tarte tartin, or a flavoursome chickpea curry. So with this in mind why would you deliver your client something completely obscure to their needs and requirements? Chances are, the tenure of your relationship won’t be particularly lengthy if you aren’t able to grasp what they’re after and what they’re about pretty quickly.
One of the most cost-effective methods of better understanding your customer is through asking for feedback. Don’t, however, fall into the trap of asking closed questions, as, not surprisingly, they return closed answers. Use the likes of: “In your opinion, how did we perform in the delivery of the recent project, and if you were to recommend any ways in which we could improve moving forward, what would they be?”.
If your position, perhaps company owner, prevents you from dealing firsthand with customers on a daily basis, chances are, you won’t know what makes them tick. Speak to your client-relationship managers, or your staff on the front line, and they will help you determine your customers’ requirements.
Communication
Despite the fact technology is slowly fulfilling most roles within business, whether it be smart processes or stages of the manufacturing industry. One area, however, that the ever-enhancing innovation will not be able to replace is compassion and empathy.
Remember, your customers are humans too. They understand that mistakes happen and although they might not be overly thrilled about it, hearing about it, sooner, rather than later, is almost always a positive — of course, it won’t seem like it at the time.
A smooth flowing channel of communication is important in any relationship. From the IDC survey, 91 per cent of customer and 67 per cent of business, respectively, suggested that mobile and online services should be faster.
The difficulty with high end clients is that they will all demand your attention and that you place them above anything else. Unfortunately, you have more than one customer and ignoring the rest is foolish. By setting up automatic responses, or having timings in place, acting as a promise to when you’ll reply to your customers, you can satisfy this list of clients without neglecting others.
Perks
It should come as no surprise that many of your customers will respond positively to something for free. At the end of the day, an expected item of gratuity is welcomed by anyone in this world, regardless of their stature.
First of all, look at what your business has at its disposal and attempt to utilise this first. If you can offer discounts or a reward scheme in return for positive customer relations, attempt to exploit this.
Alternatively, a simplistic gift that will sit favourably with your client will undoubtedly earn you those all- important ‘brownie points’. Throw the likes of a corporate day, whether that be a round of golf, or a day out at the football. Or, perhaps, you can send a Christmas hamper.
All of these aforementioned suggestions will be a small price to pay when considering it can help you retain customers who are likely to spend significant amounts of money in the future.
Tracking
For high-end business clients, they will have achieved the position they find themselves in thanks to a focus on results. Prove to them that you can deliver the required results by implementing a tracking system.
ROI is crucial for any business. Show your business how and when you will deliver and base this answer on genuine quantifiable calculations and statistics.
Understand your clients, recognize their worth, and ultimately offer them everything that you would expect. Although they might be high-brow, they are still human and will respect a good dose of honesty!
