Do you have a favourite store? No matter how far the store, you’ll travel to buy your products or get your services taken care of. Most likely the quality of the product or service is half the story. Most of us travel obscene distances not because there was no other store that could aid our cause closer but because we feel welcome like we are at home in these stores.
The most undiscussed aspect of a successful business for me, is how do we treat our employees and by extension our clients. Clients as an extension because the employees are usually the front line connection to the clients and they need to be empowered to do their jobs right.
However for this post we will only talk about the importance of the clients, how they should be treated and the prize we get for doing a great job taking care of them. It’s not that you shouldn’t figure out the client side, I simply feel if you understand why you need to treat the clients right, you’ll inevitably pass that information to the employees in a way that reading about it from me wont impact as much as creating it for yourself.
To start off we all must understand who the client is? If you work in a place where you have used the services or bought the products, it means you’re the client. If you’re not able to afford the place you work for or your sense of taste wouldn’t allow you to spend your money there no need to fret because aside from you who else uses such a store? People! So basically this is all about understanding people both your clients and window shoppers just looking to make a budget.
How do we create that welcome feeling in our places of work? When you walk into your favourite shop, what about it excites you to plan your next trip before you’ve even left the store? Once you answer that question, how can you replicate those feelings but for all the clients who visit your place of work? But my place of work is different you might be thinking to yourself.樂 Its not about where you work, it’s about how you interact with the clients where you work.
If you take a step back and refocus for a moment you’ll realise a lot of your work involves dealing and perhaps collaborating with other human people. Hence, I’ve found the real question is how do I deal, collaborate, and interact with other human people in my work life? Perhaps that’s the question that plagues us all, that when we get to our jobs we can be as personal and available to help all our clients to the best of our abilities as we would hope to be served when we go out.
This doesn’t mean that all will go to our clients demands and tastes but it does mean an amicable level of understanding can be reached that leaves all parties involved with a sense of hope. Cause even if the plan didn’t go through, we have a good enough understanding that there is hope we can make a plan B possible.
What if plan B costs you a personal sell? Should it matter路♂️ not if you’re goal is client retention, because though you didn’t make the sell, the client knows you’re reliable so why wouldn’t they come back to someone they feel they can trust?
There are so many places and pieces of advice that have been used in life and to go through them all seems counterintuitive. I can’t speak specifically to your situation but I will touch on 1 and only 1 principle that if applied correctly will ensure you and your organisation succeed immensely.
I have been blessed enough to work for big NGOs directly linked to clients and sponsors for the events we were having. I have also worked as a marketing agent and a customer care representative so trust me when I say this next tip isn’t easy but it’s got me out of so much hustle and several clients who I didn’t even successfully help them besides giving a referral, come back and request to be attended by me directly.
This principle is Patience. You’ve probably heard this several times but patience really is a superpower. Especially when you work in places where you have to interact with people constantly. If you make patience your second language you’ll be able to access all manners of solutions for whatever manner of issues you get faced with as you look to serve your clients better.
Patience is an air gap of time allowing you to make a decision and in heated moments this air gaped time of patience diffuses situations before you even fully get to grasp the happenings. It leaves you with enough time to not argue and be right but to be useful and actually help the clients with their needs.
As you exercise patience in listening, understanding and coming up with solutions to best aid your clients always remember to carry and wear your smile with you. Otherwise we just looks like we are upset with the client. Smile not because your job requires you to be polite but smile because studies show we get a boost of happy chemicals rush into our blood when we smile and that helps us feel more motivated to do put our best foot forward. Smile because you want to feel great, even under pressure I find myself smiling. The pressure doesn’t shift but I feel better about dealing with the stress one item at a time.
Most people hear patience and automatically think, look I don’t want to be taken for an idiot or look foolish because I was helping this client. Patience seems to be foreign language in business and life as drive values of ruthlessness to make the sell. But ruthlessness will not diffuse the situation, aggression will only compound the stress added to the situation. The reason we apply patience is because we want to meet our clients needs effectively with whatever tools we have at our disposal.
Remember it’s not about us, it’s about our clients and that should always lead us to wanting to be more useful to those clients. Patience will ensure that you’re paying attention to the clients needs and remove yourself from the equation as you seek to serve them better, whether they walked in a minute before closing or not. How can you ensure even if you don’t make the sell the client leaves with an understanding and excitement to return later.
The success of any business is mostly based on how clients are treated. Some organisations choose to “Handle” their clients instead of treat them and that in itself is a fundamental flaw. How can we use patience to build a sustainable client treatment system that works for us in our organisations and in life.
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