In the current environment, managing the customers that you already have is vital.

To develop valuable, long term relationships with your customers, you need to move the interaction from being purely transactional to something longer term. Winning new customers when you can’t go out and meet people is challenging. Also, repeat customers tend to spend more money than new customers as they trust your brand and know what to expect from your business. There is a cost of acquisition for new customers, whether that is marketing costs, offering discounts or incentives.

Your approach to managing customer relationships can be both proactive and reactive. Reactive methods might involve responding quickly to customer enquiries, addressing reported issues quickly or turning orders around more efficiently than your competitors.

Proactive customer relationship management involves building loyalty among your existing client base through targeted marketing, sharing helpful information or developing a customer loyalty programme.

A customer loyalty programme is a great way to encourage repeat purchases among your existing customer base. For example, you could offer customers a 5% discount if they set up an automatic renewal or 10% off every third purchase.

In the current environment, accessibility is a key factor in the success of any business. Think about how you can make your business more accessible to customers. Technology can help, and businesses can leverage everything from automated chatbots on websites or making staff available to speak with customers on-screen via Teams, Zoom or Skype.

Don’t forget about good old fashioned phone calls! Being on the end of the phone when your customers need you is hugely valuable – we have all heard customers complain about never being able to reach a company on the phone. If you are a company whose customers can always get someone on the phone to help, you will develop much deeper relationships with your customers.

Don’t forget to ask your customers for feedback. Your best customers will be more than willing to tell you what you can do better and where you can improve aspects of your product or service offering. Finally – say thank you to your customers. Not enough businesses do this, and it will help you stand out from the crowd.