Clients... and 38 ways to communicate with them

As Alan Weiss (guru to the savvy consultant) says:

"It is actually difficult to contact clients too much. It is easy to fail to contact them frequently enough. If there is anyone anywhere who has ever sent you a check for your services and with whom you haven't communicated in the past 6 months, then you will never reach your growth potential. The secret is simple: Establish an ongoing dialogue with clients. In the worst case, a monologue will do."

You don't get business you don't ask for. You don't get remembered if you don't keep in your clients' minds.

But how can you keep your name on the tip of their tongues?

Here's 38 ways:

Print:

Letters; brochures; newsletters; article reprints; job aids and checklists; posters and sayings; cartoons; testimonials and examples of completed assignments.

Phone

Calls to 'stay in touch'; a 1800 (or 800 in USA) number and hot-line help to encourage use; information relayed on meetings or events of interest; reminders of long-term follow-up responsibilities and dates; introductions to third parties (that is, customers for your client).

Events

Interviews with the client for industry journals; attendance at industry and professional meetings that the client attends; hosting periodic conferences on topics of interest; acting as an intermediary with other clients for mutual learning.

Internet

Web page updates and additions; 'password' website reserved for clients; regular email contact; branding in your email signature file; email with ideas and suggestions; references and/or hyperlinks to relevant sites; a chat room on your website; an extranet

Personal

Visits to the client without any particular agenda; entertaining key clients; sending holiday cards or gifts (as permitted); participating in mutual charity events and fund-raisers; seeking out common community and social events; sending "I'll be in the area" cards.

Other

Co-authoring articles with the client; sending fax messages and information; advertising in industry publications the client reads; exhibiting at trade shows that key clients will attend; asking the client to help you as a critiquer, advisor, editor, etc.; inviting the client to be on your advisory board; breakfast or lunch meetings you sponsor on relevant topics.

Obviously, not all of these methods will lend themselves to your own business. But I am amazed and ashamed that there are so many more ways I can be keeping in contact with my clients than I currently am.

What might be useful is to compile a Communications Strategy for each of your clients, utilising a checklist of the most appropriate of these methods for each individual client.

When you match consumer psychology with effective communication styles you get a powerful combination. Lee Hopkins can show you how to communicate better for better business results. At Hopkins-Business-Communication-Training.com you can find the secrets to communication success.

RELATED ARTICLES

How to Provide Instant Customer Service
Customer service is an essential component of any business. Clearly, if you work alone your business thrives on good customer service. But what if you run much of your business online? How do you provide excellent customer service 24 hours a day seven days a week? Here's an idea which is working for me.

Absence Makes the Heart Grow Fonder
However, in the world of business, this clich� may not necessarily be true. Sometimes it can be more like 'Out of Site, Out of Mind'.

Keeping Clients Happy Keeps them Coming Back
Whether you are a seasoned small business professional, or you have just opened your doors to new clients, your marketing strategy should not only involve bringing in new business, it should also include keeping your current clients, your most important asset, happy and coming back for more or referring your services.

Finding Out Why a Potential Customer is Calling On You
Our challenge as the business owner/sales person answering the telephone, is to build rapport with the caller, quickly and easily.

E-Business?s Best Friend: eCRM
From Ebay to the smallest home-operated start-up, e-businesses of all sizes struggle to accurately answer a common question: who are my customers? If you can't answer that question, chances are you're also in the dark about the following questions. What customer demand trends can I expect in the future? How can I improve customer retention? What can I do to build long-term relationships of trust with customers? Knowing the answer to these questions can mean the difference between long-term growth and profitability and crashing and burning.

Who Says the Customer is Always Right?
We all know the old adage, "The Customer is Always Right." If you are an online business owner or offline for that matter, you are on both sides of the subject almost everyday.

Do You Want More Profits? - Follow The Golden Rules Of Providing Good Customer Service
Last night I was at my computer and a Skype chat window opened up with a link in it from a stranger. I clicked the link and was taken to one of those "You would have to be crazy to pass up this business opportunity" sites. You know, the kind with great testimonials and it seems too good to be true possible outcomes. All it takes is a few hours a day and you can be pulling in thousands of dollars! Wow, sounds great. Of course there was no mention of what the business actually is.

The Marvelous World of Metaphors
Recognize metaphors from every angle and round up more insight into your own innovation. Nobody can do it better than you can!

The death of customer servie
The other day a reporter call to interview me on the "Death of Customer Service". My first reaction was to deny that charge and claim that customer service is very much alive and well. But upon further thought of the service I've received over the past few months and what others have related to me about their experiences, I had to admit that the quality and level of service has decreased. Upon further thought I realized that it has been on a decline for quite a while.

Adjustment DENIED
It's just a simple thing ? I bought a new set of shelves for my office. It wasn't a real problem, but when I got the shelves home, I found dents on the front of the shelves where the package had been leaned up on some other object, the shelves had been removed from the original box and put into another box. The dents didn't affect the way the shelves worked, but it did affect the way they looked. Normally, I might have overlooked the problem, and just used them anyway, but I felt I had paid full price for the shelves and deserved a discounted price, so I mentioned it to the store manager the next time I was in the store.

Moments That Matter
Many years ago, I was a first year apprentice assigned the task of pressure washing a set of condensing coils on the roof of a grocery store on Capital Hill in Seattle, an upscale part of town.

Over Deliver - The Key to Customer Satisfaction
Client satisfaction starts with meeting or beating the contractual obligations of the relationship. There are also some intangibles that can help you to over deliver to a client.

Stellar Customer Service in 10 Simple Steps
If you're like me, you've had plenty of experience with BAD customer service. Just think about the last time you had a bad experience with a product or a service.

Turning Customer Mistakes Into Raving Fans
When you make a mistake with a customer, should you write them off as lost -- never to return again?

Putting The Serve Back Into Customer Service
Good service is easy to spot and hard-to-find. Mediocre service occasionally stands out but only because it's the cream-of-the-crap.

What Exactly is Customer Relationship Management?
The defintion of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) that I favor is "CRM is the business strategy that aims to understand, anticipate, manage and personalize the needs of an organization's current and potential customers"

11 Ways to Get What You Want - Be a Clever Customer!
We all want great service, whether we are buying our weekly groceries from a store, or want a billing hitch resolved at our local utilities provider. Whether it's getting our car fixed, or a great meal in a restaurant. So we can holler and complain about how poor customer service and satisfaction has become - or we can do something about it ourselves, when we have those one-to-one opportunities with a real person.

If Everyone Thinks They Give Good Service, Why Do We As Customers Think Its Poor!
First of all let's look at what customer service is all about.

Your Voice Print
"Mountains are built one pebble at a time and climbed one step at a time." This is a quote of mine that I personally put into practice each day as I progress towards fulfilling my WHY in life.

How To Use Your Current Customers
Jay instructed a customer of his to offer a rare coin collection to new customers for just $19. He was actually losing a couple of dollar on every sale! But .... of the 50,000 people who bought the coin collection for $19, nearly 10,000 come back and bought.

home | site map