Customer Servces
Business Success Is Built on Relationshipsby Lydia Ramsey
There is no time like the end of the old year and the start of the new to assess your goals and to make specific plans for growing your business. One of the most effective ways to assure that you maintain your current client base while attracting new ones is to focus on building relationships. That is, after all, the basis of successful business.
All things being equal, people tend to do business with people they like. And all things not being equal, people tend to do business with people they like. You can have a superior product, a great price and state-of-the-art systems, but if you don’t treat your customers with courtesy and respect, you will eventually lose them to someone who does. If you are not available to your customers, you will eventually lose them to someone who is.
In today’s highly technological world, it is all too easy to lose the human touch and personal contact. E-mail and voice mail are two of the culprits who have robbed us of that individual connection, and they have done it in the name of efficiency. While both save time and money in the workplace, it is all too easy to use them as our sole means of communication. Neither one should be a substitute for talking to or meeting face-to-face with clients and colleagues.
Use your e-mail to exchange information, but don’t use it when you need to discuss issues or negotiate deals. In spite of all the cute ways to show emotion on the Internet, smiley faces and the like simply cannot convey accurately what the sender is feeling. You need to hear with your ears what your client is saying.
Voice mail messages are often more accurate than the receptionist who tries to summarize what the caller said, but they were not intended as a replacement for talking directly with others. Don’t hide behind your voice mail, or use it primarily as a way of screening your calls. If you never answer your phone during business hours, people will soon catch on and call someone who will talk to them.
Truly successful people are never too busy for personal contact with clients and coworkers. All the timesaving technology available will be totally useless if there is no one to communicate with.
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Lydia Ramsey, author of MANNERS THAT SELL, keynote speaker and seminar leader, is a leading authority on business etiquette and protocol. For more FREE business etiquette tips, email lydia@MannersThatSell.com, visit www.MannersThatSell.com or call 1-866-
