Building Relationships - Personal vs. Business

My husband and I - June 2006

I am sure there are articles for days on how to create and build on relationship with customers.  It always amazes me how complicated people make it.  Why don't we treat it more like we do in our personal lives? - they tend to have the same flow and life cycle.

I have been married to my husband now for almost seven years.  It started with an attraction; we were a work place romance that thankfully worked out.  Side note: we will never work together again.  From there we hung out to make sure we were compatible and enjoyed the same things.  After being together for a while we needed to learn how to compromise and how to deal with issues when we disagree.  After being married for a while, we learned how to communicate, be honest and learn a deep understanding of each other.   How about taking these same steps in the life of our relationship and apply them to business.

It begins with an attraction!

-Companies create their product or service, package it and advertise it to make it look attractive.  Get it in front of customers and get them to explore.  It's a two way street, we are attracted to customers because we feel we can fill a need or want they might have.  They may be attracted to us for the same reasons.

Are we compatible?

To build a relationship with a customer you have to be open.  If you think about some of the companies that people love (Nike, Columbia, Apple, etc.) it's because they share similar values.  It doesn't mean they like everything they do, companies make mistakes and bad decisions just like we do in our personal lives.

What happens when you disagree?

Sometime you will annoy your customers and vise versa.  This is when you may get customer complains, but it's how you deal with these complaints that will allow you to grow together.  Treat them as market research to help understand each other.  Be sensible and learn from it to build a stronger relationship in the long run.  While I don't write actual customer complaints to my husband, we are constantly banking that information to use in the future.

Compromise

If you stick to your guns or policy and procedures all the time, people will not feel valued, or more importantly like you are not going above and beyond to earn their business.  Listen to the customers and work to fit their needs - within reason of course.

A deeper understanding

A lot of bigger organizations treat their customers like transactions.  A bonus of being a smaller business that allows more face to face interaction, is that it allows you to treat customers as people.  Consider the emotional experience that comes along with making a purchasing decision, especially a bigger ticket item, and use that to design a completely custom experience.

Be Pro-Active

Do things to intentionally make the experience easier.  The steps above of really getting to know your customer will make this easier with time.  Personal Example: my husband has a really hard time getting his dirty laundry into the laundry basket.  I determined it was because there was a lid on the basket and that extra step was just really inconvenient for him.  My pro-active approach...remove the lid.

Communication

Like the tagline for our company, this is the key to any good relationship both personal and professional.  There is really no such thing as over communicating.  I have found both in my career and home life it is better to leave nothing to the imagination because everyone interprets things differently.

Honesty

Goes along with great communication, it is the core of a healthy relationship.

Cheers!

Kristen