Infographic: How To Improve Client Relations

Improving client relations should be a top priority for all business owners. Research shows that almost 80% of sales come from existing customers.

So, it’s sensible to offer the best communication channels your company can afford. If you don’t keep your existing clients happy, they will soon start spending your money elsewhere. Below is an infographic to look at that describes 10 different ways you can improve client relations within your business.

 1. Provide multiple means of contact:

By providing multiple means of contact, you will improve the communication between yourself and your clients. Some ways you can open up communication could including providing a postal address, a phone number, an email and live chat.

2. Invest in a client portal that offers better communication tools:

A client portal is a secure, internet-based cloud software that allows businesses and clients to come together and collaborate from all over the world. Each portal offers different tools so it's important to do your research to determine which will be appropriate for your business, but generally they include: Project management, file sharing, task management, and team collaboration tools.

3. Use video chat to speak with clients face to face:

Only 0.2% of companies use video chat to communicate with their clients face to face. Companies such as Amazon and Sky TV are two companies trying to start the trend of using video chat to deal with customer support and queries. The benefits of using video chat include: faster communicating compared to sending e-mails back and forth, more focused engagement and participation from both parties.

4. Launch a mobile app that allows clients to manage their accounts:

45% of unhappy clients would prefer to use a mobile service.

5. If a client isn’t satisfied, pass them onto management immediately:

62% of people have to contact customer service multiple times to resolve an issue, and this can lead to your clients becoming frustrated and dissatisfied with your service. It’s important to communicate regularly to ensure your clients aren’t having any issues, and if you don’t have time to speak to them directly then you should respond to any problems they come to you with as soon as possible.

6. Get to know your clients:

It costs 5 times more to acquire new clients than it does to keep current ones. This statistic backs up the argument that businesses should be prioritising customer retention over customer acquisition.

7. Give your clients the chance to send feedback:

For every complaint, there are 26 other unhappy clients who didn’t say anything. When you start to receive feedback, you’ll be able to fix those issues as well as track patterns in your complaints to see if there is a bigger issue at hand.

8. Don’t spam you clients with irrelevant sales information:

35% of clients claim companies spam their inboxes. Spamming your clients is unnecessary and can lead them to unsubscribing. Instead, you can send out a monthly or twice monthly newsletter giving your clients updates about what’s going on in your business, maybe seasonal offers. It’s vital that you make it relevant to them.

9. Apologize when you get something wrong:

74% of people say they would give the business the benefit of the doubt if they admitted their mistake.

10. Use social media to keep in touch with your clients:

43% of people would use social media channels for customer service issues if it became an option.