Top 3 Tips to Maintain Customer Relationships

Does this sound familiar? You are starting to build your business, things are going well – but you are struggling to maintain the level of service you would like to provide. You still need to find time to hustle and build new business – and your existing customers are feeling neglected.  

There is no worse feeling than realising that while you’ve been out building business, your existing customers have quietly slipped out the back door.

Here are my top 3 tips to maintain your customer relationships – without killing yourself in the process.

1.     Segment your customers

If you are trying to give your customers all the same amount of love – you’ll drown in never-ending guilt of not being able to do it all, and in the end, disappoint them.

A better approach is to look at your customer list and segment them by value. That is, create about 3 or 4 segments, and add each of your customers into one of those buckets. So you may have 2 customers worth over $100k per year – they are in one segment. You may have 5 customers worth between $50k and $100k per year – they are in your second segment – and so on.

Once you’ve created segments, you can allocate your time and activity to those worth the most to your business, who are also likely to be those expecting the highest level of service from you.

2.     Be proactive

The biggest mistake people fall into when maintaining customer relationships, is waiting for them to contact you when they need something.

Be proactive, and book in meetings with your customers on a regular schedule. They will appreciate the attention, and it gives you a chance to discuss what is happening with their business, and how they are getting on using your product.

By being proactive, you avoid a situation where you only speak with your customers when something is wrong or broken.

3.     Be genuinely interested in their business

Make a point of actively being interested in their business success. If you see an article about their industry that may be of interst to them – send them a personal note with a link to the article.  

Ask them how they are getting on with the specifics of using your product and provide help to ensure they are making the most of your solution to help them in their business. After all, you sold them your solution to help them solve a challenge in their business – ensure that they have gotten the outcomes they were after.

By continuing to maintain and grow your relationships with existing customers, and by implementing Customer Success methodologies, you will build a strong business of your own.

If you would like to learn more about how to build business with other businesses, check out our 12-Week Sales Incubator Course.