Building Relationships That Create Value
As the business environment becomes increasingly global, companies are challenged with developing customer strategies that build connections, establish relationships, reveal experiences and create value. While companies have a range of strategies, tools and technologies available to help them understand their customers, there is limited proof that businesses have been successful at adapting and implementing effective two-way communication strategies for real competitive advantage.
Perhaps the most important strategy that a company can implement to build connections with their customers is establishing effective two-way communication. To build customer relationships, businesses must make communications a fundamental component of their strategy. If customers don’t hear from you or hear from you irregularly, it reasons that a relationship will have little chance of ever developing. While two-way communication is necessary, it is critical that it also be meaningful and valuable. A Spanish translator with 24 Hour Translation Services also suggests that content must be available in the language of your customers. If customers decide your messages are worthless, they will be flagged as junk mail or spam and never seen. Some software and data analytics companies, including IBM, MINITAB, and SAP produce white papers, tutorials and best practices to clients and other readers online, that demonstrate their interest in providing relevant information that keeps their customers informed and interested.
While more companies are producing informative content for online distribution, large quantities of information that are available to customers is worthless sales pitches that are designed to push and promote new products and services. In reality, companies should be developing content that has value and that allows customers to solve new problems or recognize new opportunities that customers can accomplish. To accomplish this, businesses need to think about the content that they can be generating that their customers will find interesting and useful and will establish them as a partner that is concerned about customer results.
Improving Two-Way Communication With Employees
In addition to creating two-way communications with customers, businesses must also focus on improving two-way communication with their employees and other stakeholders. These groups are critical to the success of programs directed at improving customer communication and relationships. If employees are excluded from the communication strategy, they won’t be obligated to support, promote or execute the initiative in an appropriate manner. Some employees might even feel offended or become disgruntled if they feel like they only hear about new strategies from customers.