Whilst you may not like some of your customers, don’t let this stand in the way of looking after them. After all, without them you couldn’t afford to buy those shoes you’ve been saving for. Sometimes the most painful customers turn out to be loyal fans and spread the word, simply because no one else would look after them in the way you do.

Ignoring this vital section in your daily business process will damage your brand and is the fastest way to failure. You may think you do offer great support, however, there’s so much more in this day and age to offer your customers and eventually reach the goal of a strong and loyal friendship.

The definition of “Customer management” is now “Make a new friend”.

There is no single class of customers, they are humans like you and me who have different wants and needs. Research your customer base and use social networking to understand the different types of people who buy from you. Use this information to build marketing campaigns to specifically suite each type of personality. Experiment and see what feedback you get.

Feedback from your customers is critical in developing your business in the right direction. When you create these marketing campaigns, ask what your customers thought of it, how useful it was to them and monitor the conversion rates. Doing this will not only build a stronger relationship with your customers but ensure that next time you get it a little more right.

Each time a customer contacts you for help, listen to their needs, ask important questions to better understand what they want from their call. You have two ears and one mouth so hear them out before interrupting. Doing this will get to the source of the problem and you’ll better understand how to solve the issue and leave the customer feeling happy with the resolution.

Here are some tips to help manage and build relationships with your customers

A successful business has recurring sales from happy customers. Don’t ignore your past sales, follow them up and see if they’re happy. Email is an easy way to manage this. Ask them to leave a review for the products they purchased, this will encourage others to buy the same.

How annoying is it waiting for a reply when you just have a quick question about a product you’re about to purchase? Some stores take over a day to respond to product queries. If you want the sale, reply within an hour or two, or better yet within 30mins, that will seriously impress them! Ashop Commerce even provide real-time live chat software so you can directly interact with visitors on your store. What better way to satisfy your customer than with real-time help?

Surveys are a great solution for gathering customer feedback. You can ask specific questions that you need to know in order to develop better marketing strategies and ways to connect better with customers, while doing just that. Customers will feel important that they have contributed to the business they intend to deal with.

Use social networking sites like FaceBook and Twitter to closely interact with your followers. Learn who they are, why they like you, listen to their needs and respond promptly.

Nowadays we need to get to know our customers, speak to their needs and not just send a generic email to a database. Try to appeal to different types of people within a database. Customers are not there just to purchase your products, but to help build a great new product and even a more successful marketing campaign. If treated right, they will become invaluable assets providing new ideas and direction.