Why Stay in Touch with Your Clients?
Six Reasons to Keep Connected… Consistently.
When it comes to keeping in touch with your clients, it’s important to remember that these professional relationships need nurturing and attention, just like any other relationship in life.
Your client interactions should be intentional and thoughtful, not Crockpot-style “set it and forget it,” because staying in front of your clients in meaningful ways will benefit your business.
Here, we outline six reasons, though you might think of a few more of your own… and if you do, we invite you to share them with us on social media! (Consider this is our way of modeling one of our suggested strategies below).
Reason #1: Retention
It’s important to keep connected with your clients because, let’s face it — your most valuable customers are being pursued by your competitors.
Leave too much lag time between communicative touch points and your client might be inclined to send their business elsewhere.
Reason #2: Customer Retention is More Cost-Effective than Acquisition
No matter how long you’ve been in business, you know that it costs more (money, time, energy, etc.) to attract and on-board a new client than it does to keep your existing ones happy.
Reason #3: Consistent Communication Can Deepen Your Existing Relationship
In other words, just because you complete x, y, and z service each month for your client doesn’t mean they don’t need more.
Maybe they don’t know they need more — or worse, they might not know that you offer additional services outside of what you’re already providing.
By keeping lines of communication open and checking in regularly, you might discover that your client who “only needs blogging” each month suddenly has the opportunity to produce a video about their company, but has no idea how to get started or who to ask for help.
If you’re in front of them enough to allow these conversations to happen, you’ll have the opportunity to swoop in and save the day by saying, “Wait, WE can do that for you!”
Reason #4: Make All of Your Clients Promoters of Your Products and Services
If you allow too much time to pass in between interactions with your clients, you run the risk of turning those clients into passives or detractors, rather than promoters.
If someone in their network is looking for a particular service that they already hired you to do, but all they know of their experience working with you is the basic delivery, they might not be inclined to put your business forward as one they recommend.
For instance, “My company is drowning in content overflow. We need to outsource to a strong team ASAP.”
Your client might just respond with something like “Eh, I hired X agency, but (insert shoulder shrug).”
Or, worse yet, they might say, “You know, I am working with someone but this conversation is inspiring me to make a change. I’m not really even sure what they are doing for us anymore, other than the basics we hired them for… however long ago that was.”
Don’t make a nuisance of yourself by checking in too often. We’re not advocating that you spam your own clients.
However, keeping in touch in meaningful ways — let’s say once a month — will matter to your clients and can be as simple as taking the temperature and asking follow up questions like:
- “Is there anything else we can help you with?”
- “Did you see any ROI following our latest campaign?”
- “Have you considered running a promotion next quarter to support the X, Y, Z initiative?”
Consider how your communication can turn your clients into advocates for you and your business. That’s the goal of keeping in touch!
Reason #5: Create Compelling Stories — for Them to Tell About You!
Refer back to Reason #3 about deepening your relationship and the example in which you’re the hero because you’ve solved a problem you didn’t know (and for a time your client didn’t know) existed. That’s an awesome story for both of you.
They’ll be happy to share it as a success for their brand and you can use it as a case study illustrating just how much you’re invested in your client’s success.
Great stories, regardless of the narrator!
Reason #6: Rake in the Referrals… and Your ROI
If you focus on any of the above reasons to keep in clear and consistent communication with your clients, we are confident you will not only see an increase in referrals but also your ROI.
In this case, your investment equals the time, effort, energy, and expertise you spend on these communication efforts, which has a two-fold return: happier clients who will likely turn into:
It’s basically the definition of a win-win.
A Few Helpful How-Tos
Staying in touch with your clients is important and here’s how you can do it in ways that are meaningful to them and, ultimately, to you.
- Hit send — shoot a quick email to check in on what’s going on with them and update them on what’s new with you!
- Find a stamp — look, some of us still love snail mail (pro-tip: make sure it’s designed beautifully before it hits the trash or recycling bin. You want to make a statement and aim to be memorable, however possible). On that note, we find that a well-chosen or designed handwritten card is much harder to heave into the bin.
- Ring ring — give a quick call. Even if they don’t answer, a sweet and succinct voicemail might strike just the right note at just the right time.
- Give thanks — Seriously. The art of the thank you note is underrated and under practiced. You can even make it a thank you email or phone call; the important thing is to show gratitude and give thanks. It matters… and it’s memorable.
- Show some love. Feature your customer in your company’s highlight reel. Celebrate their success as a way of celebrating yours. Trust us, they won’t mind.
- Enlist their opinion — send a quick survey and get some honest feedback. Once again, this will likely benefit you both. They might isolate an area of need or want that they hadn’t recognized before. This will give you both a fair shake at Reason #4.
- Get some engagement. Tag them on social media and ask them to weigh in on larger industry issues or newsworthy items that affect all businesses. Got a green energy client on your roster? Write up a quick line or two about current gas prices and tag them to weigh in on alternative solutions and strategies. It’s really as simple as that.
Is It Though?
Simple?
Sure.
Time consuming?
You bet!
Our team at Sebright Marketing Solutions fully realizes that you’re busy working IN your business and that working ON your business often takes a back seat by necessity.
The thing is, it doesn’t have to.
We’re standing by to help you shoulder the weight of client communication and invite you to book a complimentary, 15-minute discovery call to discuss how we can benefit your business — and, by extension, your clients.