In today’s day and age it has become more imperative than ever to build strong meaningful relationships with your customer base.  The days of selling a product or service and moving on to the next client are over if you wanted to keep loyal customers?  With the events of the last decade (9/11, Katrina and the financial crash of 2008) consumer buying behavior has shifted.  Things that customers took for granted are now uncertain in their mind.  Companies that have been around for over 100 years are no longer in business.   Now customers are looking for a more meaningful connection with the companies and people they do business with.  This connection needs to be cultivated and maintained through every aspect of your client’s interaction with your company.

The key to making this connection is to truly understand who your client is and how you can structure your services and communication to better relate.  In trying to identify your ideal client base, don’t stop at revenue size, employee size, or vertical.  Go beyond that, segment your ideal clients further by understanding their working hours, business goals, strategic direction, and utilization of social media, decision factors to buying and their expectations of service.  For example, if your ideal clients are teachers, then you need to make sure you are open after 4pm when they can work with you.  If your ideal customer is a small business owner, get to know their business and how your service can help them achieve their business objectives.

Relate your products and services in terms of the solutions they need to make their business more successful.

Once you have a full understanding of who your ideal client is and how your services can benefit their business, you have the tools you need to test your current process to make sure it meets their needs.  Take a moment to walk in the shoes of your ideal client and buy your own products/services.  Take notes step-by-step of what you had to go through, and whether or not it meets your expectations.  Don’t forget for the moment you need to be pretending you are your customer.   Now take all this information and the customer specific information you gathered and restructure your business model that focuses on customer centricity to improve each stage of your customers experience.