Build Customer Loyalty By Following Up, Not Nagging (Infographic)

Today we are talking about how to let your clients and potential clients know that you’re available when they need you, without annoying them. These little tricks personalize your business and build customer loyalty by keeping you in the back of your client’s mind — all without taking too much time out of your busy day.

There’s an old U.S. senator who is terrible with names. To create a point of recognition with his constituents, he asks them, “How’s your back feeling?” Since 80 percent of us humans have back pain, folks believe he remembers them in a significant way. This is how your clients need to think of you — that you are personally interested in their professional health.

In this information age, there are just too many ways to communicate. How you use these ways can be good or bad for your business. Quote Roller wants to offer you a few tips that take mere minutes to help you create real and genuine emotional value that increases with each point of contact.

• Since everyone’s inbox is inundated, steer away from flash emails — they are too impersonal. Simply taking the small amount of time to address an email and end it with “Have a Great Day! Your-first-name-here” (instead of just your email signature) makes a load of difference. You can still copy/paste the rest of the message, if you want. For that matter, make sure your email signature has the important information about your role in your company, your contact information, and your first name or nickname above, like a real signed letter. 
• In your follow-up correspondence after meeting a potential client at a trade show or networking night, make sure to mention where you met them and maybe something specific you chatted about. (This is when keeping and updating copious sales notes comes in handy.)
• Schedule your follow-up activity for 48 hours after your first contact. Everyone’s busy and overwhelmed with information, if you don’t act soon, the mark you made will be forgotten. And scheduling it will mean that you might actually do it.
• Your next point of connection should be content-based, focusing on one area of your business that your client seemed particularly interested in. This can just be an email with links with further information or something in the news that reminded you of your client. Don’t be afraid to trickle in there some social proof, like if you have solid customer references or if you’ve been featured in the local news.
• Please, don’t use stupid abbreviations! When you say “KR” instead of “kind regards,” you might as well not say it at all. And telling a client you’ll get back to them ASAP makes you seem snappy. This is not your friend sharing a YouTube video — creating a feeling of warmth doesn’t mean being unprofessional. It means mixing up the traditional “Sincerely” with “Thanks so much!” and “Have a lovely weekend.”
• Hand-written thank you notes still matter. If someone does something extra for you or you just had a great client visit, take five minutes to write it out, maybe on the back of a funny postcard they can hang up in their office and think of you. Your handwriting is a sure-fire way to sign on customer loyalty.
  

Remember, in the end, people just like to know they’re being listened to. Simply asking the right questions and repeating back what your client said to you before can be enough to make them feel heard.

This piece is adapted from a Quote Roller piece originally posted on one of our integration partner’s AffinityLive.