Building a working customer relationship is fundamental to asserting yourself as a brand to be reckoned with. Selling high-quality produce with a good shelf life is no longer enough, and neither is “doing business as usual.” It is best if you involve your customer’s interests.
However, improving customer relations as a produce distributor comes at a cost. It is a lot of work and necessitates creating innovative programs and developing processes centered around improving customer experience.
Consumer spending habits and buying behavior have transformed over the years, but one thing has remained constant—consumers opt for businesses that have their interests at the heart of their business processes. A recent report shows that 79% of Americans only want to work with brands that actively demonstrate they understand and care about them. Therefore, it is crucial that you invest time and effort into ensuring your consumer base is satisfied with your services.
Sharing surveys, collating data from these surveys, and acting on them are all key parts to achieving positive results. However, there’s much more to it. Fresh produce software like Silo can help improve customer relationships by streamlining operations, helping with day-to-day communication, and improving overall customer experience.
With an ERP solution, payments are automated. You can also communicate with them all from one portal. Visit https://usesilo.com/products/communications to learn more. The following are five proven ways to build customer relations as a produce distributor.
1. Use The Right Communication Strategy
An easy way to lose out as a produce distributor is failing to develop and maintain an efficient communication channel with your customers. For this reason, it is important to invest in creating easy-to-use avenues by which to communicate with your clients regarding foods available for purchase and shipment.
● Be Accessible
Your customers have to be able to reach you. Ensure your customers can communicate with you anytime they require assistance. The more accessible you are, the more likely you are to have repeat customers for your food products.
● Respond Quickly
You need to let your customers know they are valued. To do this, you need to reply to their messages or calls as quickly as possible. It is also extremely important that you acknowledge their concerns. Whenever possible, avoid keeping your customers waiting.
● Learn To Accept Criticism
Customers who enjoy your service want to share their opinions. Don't be quick to shove them aside. Listen to them, hear what they have to say, and learn from mistakes. They will definitely note your commitment to providing the best experience possible.
● Don't Lie
Do not provide misleading or confusing information. Be transparent in your dealings. Let them know the delivery dates of their orders from the onset and stick with it. Also, be truthful about how long produce has been on the shelves. Your clients will appreciate collaborating with an honest business. This fosters loyalty that goes both ways.
2. Be Proactive In Your Dealings
As a produce distributor, you need to be proactive in your dealings. Studies published on PR Newswire have found that customers are generally positive about proactive brands.
Reach out to your customers first — you don't need to wait for them to contact you. Whether you are closing or opening a deal with them, keep them updated on the progress that has been made so far.
Pay attention to what your customers are saying about your business and reward your customers where possible. Bundle offerings, dynamic pricing, and discount offers are just some options you can use to win customers over.
Be open-minded about their needs. Send out messages or calls to hear what they have to say about the produce and how they feel about your distribution tactics.
In summary, monitor your performances, follow up on your customers, and understand how quickly they want objectives met.
3. Personalize Your Relationship With Customers
The more personal of a connection a customer has with your business, the less likely they are to leave you for competing companies. Personalize your dealings with your clientele.
Customers want to be treated like a priority. Tailoring client portfolios will make your customers feel special, safe, and valued. It would not be wise to single out and/or favor a particular set of customers, create discount offerings for a select few people and not cater to others. In the world of business, word of mouth travels fast.
Never treat your retail customers like a burden or solely as profit-making avenues. Send out personalized monthly emails and newsletters. Ask them about their sales, and if they need more varieties of the same produce.
4. Build Loyalty
Based on recent surveys, over 70% of consumers are more likely to recommend a brand if it has a good loyalty program.
To win your customers over, start by showing gratitude to them for their patronage, engaging them, and paying close attention to their specific needs.
A loyal customer will always choose you over the competition. Build trust with your customers and nourish this loyalty. Furthermore, ensure you keep an eye out on your competitors so that you can stay a few steps ahead. The more value you can add, the more willing consumers are to stay.
5. Ask For Feedback
To improve your customer relationship as produce distributors, ask for feedback. Customers are likely to invest in businesses that value their opinions. Ask your customer about the produce they bought and what they feel needs to be improved throughout your interactions.
An easy way of retaining customers and getting new ones is improving your customer service. Define customer service KPIs and develop ways of tracking your performance in relation to these indicators. Only then can you know what needs to be acted upon and what strategies to keep constant.
On a monthly basis, carry out customer surveys on social media accounts, via survey forms. You can request email reviews to determine the average time taken to fulfill quote requests, average order fill rate, the average shelf life of delivered supplies, and how pleased or otherwise customers are.
Tracking these metrics and working to improve on them can help increase your brand’s customer-centricity, and by extension, improve your customer retention. CX is crucial!
