All businesses, big or small, must maintain strong customer relations. To maintain your customer base, you need to take the time and effort to nurture your customers.

Most businesses nowadays are focusing efforts on virtual customer relationship management. While this may not be your strength, it is generally easier to provide support and service for online platforms. As a business owner, you must take care of all your customers, whether they’re in person or online. Online customer relationships are another area which most business owners must focus their attention.

The good and bad news is that a customer can easily communicate with you via an online platform. However, keeping in touch with customers regularly can be a challenge when putting it into practice.

The following steps can help you strengthen your critical relationships with customers:

Get Feedback from Customers

Get feedback from your customers, so you know their pain points as soon as possible by conducting a survey or following up with a phone call. The feedback you receive can help guide future conversations and allow you to be responsive to your customers’ needs and priorities.

Engage your Audience in Two-way Conversations with Presentations

Start by getting to know clients better and asking for input if you share presentation decks with them to demonstrate that you’re exceeding their key performance indicators (KPIs).

You can build customer relationships by:

• Knowing your audience before a presentation.
• Adding a chat feature to your presentation so that customers will not forget their questions or provide no feedback for fear of interrupting you.
• Engaging your clients in friendly competitions to build energy during your presentation discussions.
• Addressing concerns and questions by asking for anonymous feedback after the presentation.

Appreciate your Customers!

Thank your customers for giving their insights and for their time after receiving their feedback. Gratitude emails make recipients feel more satisfied with your service or project, thus positioning you well for future conversation.

Customer appreciation doesn’t have to be extravagant. Consider ways to show your customers that you appreciate their business by making a phone call, sending an email or offering them a promotional discount.

Virtual relationships present their challenges. However, it is not impossible to build and maintain long-lasting relationships. While this is not an inclusive list of tips to cultivate customer relationships, it will definitely start you on a path to success.