People can be fickle customers; they may go where the deal is, if their primary mode of differentiating a product or service is price. For example, when you shop for everyday items at a grocery store that does not “wow” you, you may gladly go somewhere else if you can get the same goods at a better price. However, when there is a grocery store that you are in love with, you might find yourself justifying paying a higher price and continuing to shop there because there is something that makes it a wonderful experience. It might be because the staff knows you by name. It might be the way the staff treats you. As a customer, you feel good about doing business with that store. And like all customers, you remember being treated well and having your expectations exceeded.

This is an integral aspect of business: building relationships with your customers. Customer satisfaction and loyalty are directly tied to your ability to convey value in those relationships. The magic is in the touch point. While you do not need to be there to personally perform each task, you do need to ensure each contact made with your customers consistently exceeds their expectations. This means you need to have systems in place in your business to ensure every experience with your company and staff is a fantastic one.

If you are basing your relationship with your customers only on transactions, you have no relationship. What you have are fickle customers with little or no loyalty to you. What can you do to create lasting customer relationships? Make your company indispensable to your customers by:

Create a relationship with them by adding value to their lives
Make doing business with you a wonderful experience
Reaching out through regular communication
Understanding their Dangers, Opportunities, and Strengths
Going the extra distance and consistently exceeding their expectations
Establishing systems, and then training your staff to excel at them

Creating customer relationships is a true wealth-generation vehicle because it creates customer loyalty. Like most effective strategies, it takes some thought and effort. Consider what you can do to create more dynamic and sustained customer interactions within your world. How can you add true value to the lives of your customers?

Author's Bio: 

Hugh Stewart's education is both diverse and substantial. He has two degrees from the University of Miami; an undergraduate and a graduate degree in Mechanical Engineering. He is also a graduate of the Strategic Coach® program and is currently enrolled in the Strategic Coach® Masters Program.

As an owner of several businesses, he understands how organizations flow and thrive and is able to help bridge deficits in communication and engage everyone in an organization to be able to focus on the things that are most important.

In order to get clarity about the most efficient way to ways to delegate and outsource effectively, he created the Delegation and Outsourcing workbook. It will guide you through creating a precise and clear understanding of your project goals and requirements.

Hugh is a prominent businessman who has been involved in 17 businesses in the last ten years. The one business that he is most proud of is a money service business that was started in 2005. In the beginning, it was doing close to $7 million per year in revenue. In the last year, it is now generating up to $44 million a year in revenue. With thirteen employees with an incredibly low turnover rate, Hugh works only 10 to 12 hours a week in that particular business due to leveraged time and systems.