Business relationships like any other are built on trust, understanding and compromise over long periods of time. Sometimes you go through thick and thin together. Through the rough times when things don’t go quite according to plan and are not quite right or delivered late. And through the good times when the order goes through your business like a dream, the printed shirts or embroidered caps look fantastic and everyone, including the customer, has a big smile on their face.

Every new business relationship starts with someone putting their trust in you to deliver something that you have promised to deliver.

Here are some of the things you can do to ensure you build some fantastic, long established relationships that bring years of business growth.

Keep promises

Customers judge you by the promises you make and keep. If you don’t make any promises you won’t keep your customers, because it is the promises you make that bind you to them.

When promises are broken, trust in you and your business is eroded. So if there are no promises there can be no trust.

In any customer relationship it is important to make and keep promises. These promises can be little things you plan to do for customers like call them back at an agreed time or even bigger things like delivering to a promised tight deadline that must be met at all costs.

Choosing to promise something gives you an opportunity to demonstrate that you are there for the customer and that you are dedicating your top priority to meeting their needs and expectations.

There are three main reasons why a promise you or your business makes may fail to be delivered. The first thing concerns something that is within your control, unless something goes wrong with the people or systems within your organisation.

Secondly, maybe something outside of your control didn’t happen on time – a supplier failed to deliver, there was an unexpected production machine breakdown, or simply a delivery lorry was held up by traffic.

The third reason concerns the judgements that are made when a promise is given – it may be that you or your people misjudged what needed to be done in time to deliver on your promise. Only promise what you know you can deliver and work hard to deliver what you promise – on time, every time.

The key thing here is that you should work hard with your people and systems; build enough contingency into a promise to avoid last minute delays and thirdly, train customer facing staff to ensure that high quality judgements are made in light of experience. “Under promise – within the expectations of your customer – and over deliver.”

Show appreciation

Show appreciation for the business you receive from customers. Poor service, late delivery, inaccurate invoicing or other forms of administrative inefficiency can destroy the benefits of other forms of customer service.

The less glamorous company activities, such as administration, distribution or maintenance can have a significant impact on customer satisfaction, so it is important to help people understand customers by directly relaying customer comments to non customer-facing staff.

Remember to provide positive feedback to staff. Focus attention on the specific action or accomplishment and provide the individual with recognition. Platitudes and generalisations are not motivating feedback in any sense. And vague compliments after a period of time promote a demotivating rather than motivating environment due to their perceived insincerity. Always be specific with compliments and feedback.

Highly motivated staff take great pride in what they do. Getting positive feedback in any shape or form is a real motivating factor. People are prepared to work wonders if they know that they are appreciated for the job that they do not only by the boss but also by the customers they support.

Be consistent

Your customers like knowing what to expect from you and your company and consistency is another way of building trust into customer relationshipsS – trust that your quality is consistent and that your service levels will remain high. Consistency gives your customers one less thing to worry about and, as you know, all customers like an easy life.

During a number of years with one of the UK’s largest product promotion businesses I imported product from the Far East. One of the things I learnt at that time was that the Chinese manufacturing industry is one of the most consistent in mass production in the world; once you have completed your investment in time and energy in making sure that initial production samples are correct and signed off. Generally, they get it consistently right every time.

Consistency can be as simple as always answering the phone the same way, using the same strap line in all your promotional materials and most importantly, delivering the same outstanding service and product each and every time.

Working on consistency within your businesses at all levels in all areas will improve your business performance and build confidence within your customers that you can be left to get on with the job.

Be easy to work with

Concentrate on getting things right from the beginning of the customer relationship. ‘Superstar’ owner managers know if a customer is unhappy with a product or service they will consider your company unreliable and probably won't buy from you again.

Make sure your business gets it right first time and every time and that the first order experience that your customers have with you is a positive one. Make sure that you leave a good first impression and, more importantly, work hard to maintain your reputation.

Make it easy for them to do business with you. Don’t make your customers jump through hoops to get what they need from you and your company. Make it easy for customers to repeatedly buy from you – whether by including a repeat order form with delivery documentation for repeat orders, or by providing them with a special access number to order products. Be creative, if your customers can buy from you again and again without a hassle, they will.

Listen to customers

The best way to drive away your customers is not to listen to them. ‘Superstar’ owner managers know that if you alienate your customers by not listening to them you will never understand them or learn from them.

Most of us like the sound of our own voices more than the sound of others’.We are all experts in talking, but few of us are experts in listening. We have two ears and one mouth and when communicating with customers we should use them in that ratio.

One of the little things you can do to impress your customers is to listen to them sincerely. Most people want an audience for their stories and when you provide this they will love you for it.

By listening carefully you convince them that their stories are of value and are important to you as well as to them. Listening to customers helps raise their self-esteem and furthermore creates the understanding that forms the cornerstone of any meaningful relationship.

If you believe that a successful business is based on relationships, you have no option but to listen to your customers. Incredible customer service can't be achieved in any other way.

Feedback

When you sit back and ask yourself how your garment decoration business is doing, be sure to ask your customers as well. Send them postage-paid response cards or a customer feedback questionnaire. Ask your customers (either through a survey, an e-mail request or by a phone call) how you can continue to serve them even better than you are now.

Then follow through. When you do this and develop ways to serve your customers better based on their input, they will be enthusiastic supporters of you and your company.

In summary, never make promises to customers you can’t keep; always show your appreciation both for your customers’ business and to your staff for delivering good customer service. Be consistent in what you say to customers and what you do as a business. Be easy to do business and work with and listen to customers as they will tell you what you need to do to win their business.

Finally, always ask customers for their feedback. As well as telling you what you do well they can also tell you what you can do better. Be consistent at what you do well and improve on the areas where you can do better.

Do all these things and pretty soon your business relationships with your customers will develop into something special that brings additional repeat business, order after order, month after month, year after year.

Ray Seagrave is the director of MBA Business Coaching and is a business growth and development expert. To find out more visit: www.print-packagingsuccess.co.uk or email ray@print-packagingsuccess.co.uk

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