Personalizing omnichannel experiences involves tailoring your interactions with customers across multiple channels to meet their unique needs and preferences.

Here are some tips on how to personalize omnichannel experiences:

1. Collect customer data: Collect data on your customers such as their purchase history, preferences, and behavior across different channels. This information can help you create a more personalized experience.

2. Use customer segmentation: Segment your customers based on their demographics, behavior, and preferences. This will allow you to create targeted campaigns and messages that resonate with each group.

3. Implement a CRM system: Implement a customer relationship management (CRM) system to track customer interactions across different channels. This will enable you to provide a seamless experience across all touchpoints.

4. Offer personalized recommendations: Use customer data to offer personalized product recommendations and promotions. This will increase the likelihood of customers making a purchase and returning to your brand.

5. Use chatbots and AI: Use chatbots and artificial intelligence (AI) to provide personalized recommendations and support to customers across different channels. This will improve the customer experience and reduce response times.

6. Continuously optimize: Continuously optimize your omnichannel strategy based on customer feedback and data. This will help you identify areas for improvement and create a more personalized experience for your customers.

7. Create consistent branding: Ensure that your brand’s messaging and visual identity are consistent across all channels. This helps to create a familiar and cohesive experience for the customer, no matter how they interact with your brand.

8. Tailor communications: Customize your email, social media, and other communications based on the customer’s previous interactions with your brand. Use their name, reference past purchases, and suggest items that complement what they’ve bought before.

9. Leverage location-based services: Use location data to send personalized offers or information when a customer is near one of your physical stores or in a particular geographic region.

10. Optimize for mobile: Ensure that all digital interactions are optimized for mobile devices, as many customers use their smartphones for shopping and communication. A seamless mobile experience is crucial for personalization.

11. Enable cross-channel customer service: Make sure that a customer service inquiry can be picked up and continued across different channels without the customer having to repeat information. This means integrating your customer service platforms and training staff accordingly.

12. Personalize the in-store experience: Use online customer data to enhance the in-store experience. For example, a sales associate could have access to a customer’s online wish list or purchase history in order to provide personalized assistance.

13. Implement loyalty programs: Use loyalty programs to gather more data on customer preferences and to reward customers for their repeat business. Personalize these programs based on customer behavior and preferences.

14. Use predictive analytics: Analyze customer data to predict future behaviors and preferences, then tailor your marketing strategies accordingly. This can help anticipate needs and personalize the customer experience before the customer even expresses those needs.

15. Respect privacy: Always be transparent about how you collect and use customer data. Follow data protection regulations and give customers control over their personal information. Trust is a crucial element of personalization.

By following these strategies, you can create a more personalized and engaging omnichannel experience for your customers, which can lead to increased customer satisfaction, loyalty, and ultimately, higher sales. Remember that personalization is an ongoing process that requires regular review and adjustment to keep up with changing customer expectations and technological advancements.

Hyper-Personalizing the customer experience is a successful method for customer acquisition and retention.

The majority of businesses and call center who have implemented this strategy have exceeded their yearly business goals. In addition, the majority of consumers think that a customized client connection contributes significantly to their loyalty.

With the development of digital tools and the unfolding of Big Data technology, it is now possible to determine precisely what customers want and desire by analyzing their behavioral data. The organization must be able to provide the appropriate message or product at the appropriate moment.

This beneficial effect of hyper-personalization demonstrates that consumers like being treated as individuals. This method enables the sending of just pertinent information based on the target’s profile. Under these conditions, a satisfied and happy consumer may become a true brand advocate. And here the 4 strategies to hyper-personalize your customer experience.

1) Recognize the 4 most important consumer expectations

To fulfill your customers’ expectations, you must comprehend both their expectations as consumers and as individuals.

What do they believe a healthy brand-customer relationship should look like?

In general, customers anticipate the following from brands:

• Proactivity: Make an effort to surprise them. Offer your consumers unique business-related ideas, methods, or deals.

• Relevance of the message: Clients request that you provide them the necessary information. Your lack of relevance to their routines and actions may be viewed as a lack of professionalism and seriousness.

• The human aspect of the interaction: Consumers want to feel like they belong to a group, a community, and are acknowledged for who they are. During the stressful era we experienced, it was even more crucial to personalize online customer relationships. Take an interest in their well-being, who they are, or divert them to break up the monotony of economic transactions.

• The homogeneity of communication channels: No matter the channel a consumer chooses to contact a business, he or she must have access to the same level of service and receive the same answers. There should be no discrepancy between the responses supplied by a chatbot, a webchat, on the phone or else.

• A partnership: Give consumers opportunities to support the brands they trust and care about. It is crucial to check the feasibility of your customers’ expectation, as well as the sincerity of your own company’s efforts.

NobelBiz’s goal is to ensure that call centers are always one step ahead. Our solutions are optimized for performance, productivity and customer experience excellent. We are not an ordinary telecommunication provider, but a provider designed for the sole purpose of serving call centers and their customer all around the world.

Our carrier network is one of the most advanced one of the most advanced solutions on the market, offering global coverage with integrated redundant servers that guarantee 99.99% uptime.

Our voice carrier is also :

• Specifically designed to meet the needs of the call center industry.
• The most advanced telecom network on the market.
• A single carrier, not a reseller.
• A unique reliable infrastructure with multiple redundancies.
• The most competitive telecom provider in terms of cost per minute.

We have one of the most versatile selections of intelligent tools, specifically designed to increase contact rates and productivity, help mitigate the impacts of tagging and call blocking, and ensure full compliance.

• LocalTouch® number broadcasting: Broadcast local numbers in a compliant manner while increasing pickup rates, with callback options enabled.

• Compliance Filters (Shield®): Apply time zone, frequency and other filters to set up compliance rules to block calls at the operator level.

• Smart Routing (SMRT®): Route calls to PSTN numbers or SIP destinations based on rationing, schedules, priorities or overflow.

2)   Know your client better with Data

Now that you are aware of customer expectations. But to communicate with your consumers in a manner that is even more personalized, you must examine the data you possess in order to have an ideal understanding of them. The abundance of consumer data is both a significant asset and a potential threat to call centers. In fact, an abundance of data might lead to a lack of relevance in the performed activities and a significant in Key Performance Indicators.

Customer relationship management (CRM) software is still required despite the fact that you have access to all information on your customers and their interactions with the business.

If your CRM cannot unify, standardize, and segment your client’s data in real time, your customer knowledge will be insufficient.

In contrast, with a precise CRM solution, you will be able to accurately determine the communication channel to be used for each client, the frequency of information delivery. And also, if the interaction made the consumer advance in the conversion funnel, etc.

Your CRM also needs to be able to keep records of the conversations you have with customers. It should be able to show what topics you are getting from each of your customers, your ROI on the communication channels you have selected, and track the number of conversations you had.

3) Determine with precision the consumer habits

Data is useful, but not sufficient to hyper-personalize the consumer experience. Additionally, you must examine the customer journey in order to understand each interaction between the client and your call center agent.

For example, it is vital to understand how a client lands on your brands’ website: is it via the homepage? A sales page? Product pages? You must also analyze these activities by considering the clicks made, beginning with their arrival and ending with the transaction.

This information will be important for sending the appropriate messages at the appropriate time and through the appropriate communication channels.

4. Enhance data collecting and analysis techniques

To properly comprehend your client needs, you require as much information as possible. You may have these information via website, mobile app, and social medias in order to comprehend their motivations, interests, and concerns, as well as how they interact with your organization.

Utilizing technologies such as CCaaS Solution can help build a comprehensive profile for each client, regarding their favorite communication channels, buying journey and past history with the brand. These technologies will significantly enhance the quality of your data collecting and analysis processes and provide you with more information about your customers’ opinions and requirements.

NobelBiz OMNI+ is a true CCaaS Solution designed with a high degree of customization and scalability. Our solution is suitable for any channel of communication channels: Phone calls, Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp, Telegram, SMS, Email, Live Chat, Webchat, voicemail.

With NobelBiz Omni+ your call center can:

• Leverage the power of data with custom reporting engine: Get reliable data from a wide range of analysis and reporting tools that provide real-time and historical information about your customers. You’ll be able to hyper-personalize your customer experience while maintaining control of your performance.

• Get excellent agent experience: The NobelBiz OMNI+ interface is one of the most agent-friendly interfaces on the market, seamlessly combining the simplicity of calls and operational interactions with a clean and accurate customer data flow. It’s a true marvel of efficiency and usability that agents love and love to use.

• Move swiftly your remote teams: NobelBiz OMNI+ gives you the ability to move entire teams of agents to a remote environment and back to the office in just a few days, with no workflow disruption. All your agents need is a laptop, headset and an Internet connection.

• Easily launch multiple campaigns: Launching independent campaigns across multiple channels is one thing, but creating and coordinating all those campaigns from a single dashboard is another. With NobelBiz OMNI+, the process of setting up campaigns is as simple as drag and drop.

5. Build robust call analytics and decision algorithms

Using data to analyze calls is an essential step to ensure your customers are seamlessly served. Analyzing calls with machine learning and AI can help you increase the chances of a purchase.

Make sure to utilize intelligent systems that can identify customer pain points. Hiring a call center agent who is knowledgeable about your brand’s products is one way to help narrow the call and provide the best experience for your client.

Increased customer satisfaction and increases in ROI will increase your customer lifetime value (CLV). Leverage machine learning and AI to make sure that your CLV is maximized by following a process that is as detailed as possible.

With more than 20 years of experience, NobelBiz provides comprehensive, customized solutions for call centers worldwide. Our services and technical solutions can meet the needs of all types of call centers, regardless of their size, industry or activity (Inbound, Outbound or Mixed).

With more than 20 years of experience, NobelBiz provides comprehensive and customized solutions for call centers worldwide.

Our motto is “A promise is a promise”. Our services and solutions can meet the needs of all types of call centers, regardless of their size, industry or activity (Inbound, Outbound or Mixed). NobelBiz has also the most responsive and proactive customer support in the whole contact center industry, with a first call resolution of over 90%.

And that is why we are known as the promise keepers of the industry.

Inge De Bleecker, Vice President of CX at Applause looks at three ways brands can personalise the customer journey, provide meaningful interactions and improve customer engagement.

There’s nothing new about personalisation. It has been a central pillar of brand marketing and customer engagement since the turn of the century. Over the last 20 years it has evolved to feature in all aspects of digital marketing and advertising, customer comms and even omni channel experiences. But despite its growing prevalence, what does personalisation mean exactly?

Personalisation offers customers experiences that are tailored specifically to keep them engaged. These days, it’s no longer a ‘nice to have’, it’s become the cornerstone of the customer journey. Customers expect it. We’ve reached a point where most people assume that brands have all the data that they need to tailor an experience to their personal requirements.

Not only does personalisation feature in the top design trends for this year (a clear indicator that we haven’t conquered this yet and assimilated into a ‘typical’ experience), but over a third of customers who abandon business relationships do so because it lacks personalisation.

Personalisation is part and parcel of the customer experience and customer engagement, but we clearly have room to improve. So where do we start?

1. Get the basics right, starting with greetings

A prime example of basic personalisation is the insertion of your name in the greeting in an email or newsletter. This type of personalisation has been around for decades. Yet, we’re still not getting it right. For example, my surname has a space in it, which is not unusual in last names in Belgium, or several other countries. Yet automated systems, to this day, are not equipped to deal with this, and will parse the last part of the surname as the surname and move the first part into the first name field. Seeing “Hello, Inge De” only reminds me that a machine tried to personalise the message, not a human. It doesn’t instill any positive sentiment at all, and it doesn’t keep me engaged.

Smart speakers are notorious for delivering the wrong greeting. Up until a couple of weeks ago, Alexa smart speakers used names as part of an attempt at personalising greetings but failed miserably. At home, we have a handful of smart speakers that are used by the whole family, but the smart speakers only address my son. This makes me roll my eyes every single time. Alexa devices have finally started to ask whether they’re addressing the correct person and are now doing a form of speaker identification in their personalised greetings efforts. I just hope they will revert to a generic greeting in cases where speaker recognition confidence is low.

2. ‘Personal best practice’ – Learn from the organisations that are getting content recommendations right

Personalisation is often used as a synonym to recommendation. After all, content is key to users, and serving up content that is deemed suitable is important. Spotify is often touted as a prime example of personalisation done right. And across the board, we’re getting there with content recommendations. Amazon has been making recommendations based on prior purchases for decades, as well as Netflix, and while those recommendations sometimes lead to hilarious results, progress is being made.

3. Personalise across the customer journey

Today’s customer expects to utilize various channels in a single interaction with a brand. A person may use a chatbot, a smart voice assistant or even call customer service. The average customer tends to use various devices that they switch between. Think of someone who starts a product search on their desktop, but later switches to their mobile as they are waiting to pick up their child from school. In some cases, ease of use dictates which device is used. Think of searching for a product using a smart speaker, and then switching to a mobile phone to view the image before possibly switching back to the smart speaker to purchase the item. Context, preferences and other aspects of the experience need to be carried from device to device, to the extent that it makes sense for the user experience, of course.

None of the items above are novel; in fact, they have been around for a very long time. Yet, it’s important that we nail the basics. Personalisation needs to make the user’s life easier, but at the same time, the onus should not be on them to improve their customer experience. Software should be smart enough to suggest things and make it easy for the user to accept or reject a suggestion. Customers want meaningful interactions every time they engage with a brand. It’s down to digital marketers and customer experience professionals to deliver highly relevant, personalised and contextualised experiences.

Inge De Bleecker is Vice President of CX at Applause.

Inge has been designing and testing web, mobile, voice and multi-channel experiences for more than 20 years. She builds and leads UX teams and evangelizes customer experience principles throughout organizations. Her mantras are “design for everyone” and “test early and often.” As vice president of CX at Applause, Inge leads the practices and studies for CX, accessibility and conversational AI. Prior to joining Applause, Inge held several positions in conversational interfaces, as well as web and mobile design and research. She holds an MA from the University of Texas, Austin.

Inge is a published author. Her book, Remote Usability Testing: Actionable insights in user behavior across geographies and time zones, which she co-authored with Rebecca Okoroji, is listed as one of Book Authority’s best new usability books of 2020. Along with Okoroji, Inge created the USERIndex benchmark — a standardized means of measuring the user experience of a digital interface. As part of the USERIndex, Inge believes that an exceptional user experience is determined by 4 USER factors: usefulness, satisfaction, ease of use and reliability.

Andrea Belk Olson investigates the topic of customer personalization and explains how it can add depth to your customer relationship building.

It’s really fascinating to speak with organizations about their personalization strategies. They speak often about things like “customized content” or “customized products”, where a customer can select a unique product color, or filter specific content they want to see on your platform. But is this really personalization?

True personalization is actually centered around knowing the customer, not simply filtering or customizing what you already produce. Personalization is the “wow” factor that can’t be automated, can’t be replicated, and is unique to that individual customer relationship. With so many marketing automation platforms, we’ve gone down the road of thinking we are personalizing offerings and services, and actually lost that true, differentiating customer connection.

Take, for example, a customer that buys $200 worth of product from you. Most companies would identify what they purchased, predictively cross-sell related items, and possibly even share a 10% discount coupon on their next purchase. They would use their insights on the customer’s industry and send over articles and information on trends and best practices. They would maybe even create a portal where the customer could view and access their previous orders, or create a “one-click” reorder option. And this would be deemed “personalization”.

The problem is that this is not game-changing anymore. These basic behaviors are primarily industry standard. If this is your personalization strategy to stand out and differentiate, you’ve fallen short. But consider if you truly understood your customer on a deeper level. For example (and this is a real-life example), let’s say you also see that customer on social media, and you find out she’s a big Tampa Bay Buccaneers fan. After her purchase, you send a thank you note and a signed Tampa Bay Jersey.

The goal of this personalization strategy isn’t the immediate ROI – but the “wow” factor, and the depth of the relationship you’re building with that customer. In this scenario, 4 weeks later, another customer made a $5,500 purchase. They said “you send my friend a Tampa Bay jersey, and she told me the story and that’s how I found you.” This true personalization is what builds a business and what “word of mouth” marketing is really made of. The ROI will follow.

In short, personalization is about building brand relationships and having a clear vision of how to go about building those relationships – in a uniquely personalized manner. The first step begins with understanding your customers beyond past purchase and facebook likes.

About the Author

Andrea Belk Olson has a 20-year, field-tested background that provides unique, applicable approaches to creating more customer-centric organizations. A 4-time ADDY® award-winner, she began her career at a tech start-up and led the strategic marketing efforts at two global industrial manufacturers. In addition to writing, consulting and coaching, Andrea speaks to leaders and industry organizations around the world on how to craft effective customer-facing operational strategies to discover new sources of revenues and savings.

I’ve stayed at many Crowne Plazas in the past, and they are nice hotels, however, the experience at this one was quite unique. It was a personalized experience, and the way they went about it is an excellent lesson we all can learn from.

First, the concept of personalization is to make the customer feel like the experience is somewhat unique to them. If I’ve stayed in a hotel and made a special request, the hotel may note that in my record, and the next time I stay at that hotel, they might remember the request, so I don’t have to ask.

What the Crowne Plaza Lansing did was different. Before I go any further, you need to know a little about me. You probably know I travel around the world delivering keynote speeches on customer service and experience. I log about 150,000 miles a year as a “road warrior.” I also have hobbies. I do card tricks and magic. I also play guitar. So, now that you have some background, here’s the story.

When I walked into my room, I noticed a note with a shoe shine kit. It was handwritten and read: This will work wonders on the shoes of a road warrior. Then I noticed some beer. Not just any beer, but a special brand called Double Magician and Staff Magician. I’d never heard of these brands, but apparently, it was a local brand. I also noticed a guitar. A note next to that read: We heard about your hobby. Thought you might enjoy making a little music during your stay! From your friends at the Crowne Plaza. WOW!

And, finally, when I returned to my room that night there was not the customary mint that some hotels leave on the pillow. There was a plastic top hat with a chocolate bunny in it – as in the magician’s rabbit in the hat trick! Holy cow! Actually… Holy chocolate bunny!

So, I had to find out who was responsible for this and say thanks for this unbelievable experience. That person is Robin Goodenough, and she and the Crowne Plaza team are amazing. What did they do? Simple. They Googled my name and found my profiles on Facebook, LinkedIn and Instagram. It was easy for them to see what my interests were. From there, they wowed me with a personalized experience.

Some may find what the Crowne Plaza team did to be a little “spooky.” I didn’t. If anyone posts something on a social channel like Facebook or LinkedIn, they should anticipate that others will see it. And, using the information posted for the purposes of creating an amazing and personalized customer experience, well there’s nothing wrong with that.

Thank you to my friends at Crowne Plaza Lansing! You created a truly memorable experience. Can’t wait to come back and visit you again!

About the Author

Shep Hyken is the Chief Amazement Officer of Shepard Presentations. As a professional speaker and best-selling author, Shep helps companies develop loyal relationships with their customers and employees.

The efforts companies make to customize the experience are triggered by the need to secure existing clients and attract new ones by positive word of mouth. Brand loyalty is hard earned and easily shattered by just ignoring a tweet. In the speed age, people crave for attention.

Customer-Centric Culture

There is a recurring feedback loop between clients’ expectations from a provider and the level of service. Due to customer-centric companies like Amazon and an increased personalization of offers, now people accept nothing less than playing the role of captain in the retail journey. The mass-production, one-size fits all era is being replaced by highly customized products and services.

Innovative companies have dropped traditional ways of getting more customers like price wars and incremental improvement of products in favor of investing in big data powered AI systems that can offer a personal touch, create tailor-made experiences and are safe from identity theft and cyber crime.

Personal with an AI twist

The paradox of this approach is that powerful, cutting-edge technology is striving to replicate a genuine human touch in the relationship between the company and the client. Algorithms are gradually learning to offer that cozy small-town feeling to customers. A dedicated personal account manager is no longer an option, considering the scale of operations. Just as in your father’s time the bank clerk recognized him by voice when he called in to clear a check, AI development can now do the same by speech recognition, natural language processing, and dialogue management.

By knowing all about your purchasing history, searches, and even GPS-based location, the system can compare your profile to thousands of “people just like you” and make recommendations, like Netflix. This is, in fact, a granular market segmentation focused on behaviors and preferences instead of considering demographics.

Personalization begins in the market scanning phase and continues down the sales funnel at each stage. Advertising is served on the potential customers’ preferred environments, at the most likely times they can pay attention, displaying products that are considered most suitable by the algorithm about previous searches. Tapping into the influence potential of the client is done by offering carefully chosen incentives, determined by behavioral cluster analysis. This is a consistent step forward from redeeming coupons for a free product and Tupperware parties.

Leverage Experiences

Customer experiences can mean anything from a website visit to an in-app purchase, attending a corporate-sponsored marathon or dealing with unresponsive customer support. Every experience shapes the client’s perception of the company and triggers a response to continue or stop. Given the decreasing attention span, organizations cannot afford to waste any interaction.

Engagement from the brand usually makes the client feel important and well catered for. In the “good morning texts” era, companies are expected to show interest and respond within a few hours, especially to undesirable comments and complaints. If the client shares a negative story on social media, it is a cry for help. Ignoring it means both wasting opportunity and more work to get new business. Almost every client will switch to a competitor after a poor customer experience.

AI can help with these problems by employing multiple strategies at once. Unstructured data analysis, like e-mail scanning, can identify problem areas and speed up solutions. Keeping a customer interaction history that creates profiles, saves the company from the shame of not remembering a past problem. A step forward is to propose incentives for the client to stay when they want to end the collaboration due to recurring trouble.

Social media channels are both data mining sites to take the pulse of the client sentiment towards the brand as well as strategy tools to reach the consumers in their natural environment. Loyalty is built on trust and trust is created by dialogue and mutual values. Show customers that you listen to understand and react to their communication and needs. AI can now take on simple tasks as responding as a low-level customer agent. Implement code that automates responses to simple inquiries and passes on to well-trained humans the more complex ones. Aim for zero open threads (make a dashboard and keep it visible).

Ensure Safety & Privacy

Although most clients are ready to trade their data in exchange for a better rate, customization options or a more convenient interaction (think Amazon 1-Click buy), the concerns regarding safety and privacy are real and increasing. Cybercrime and identity theft not only produce material damages but shatter a client’s trust in a company’s ability to protect their data.

Financial institutions and healthcare organizations are entrusted with some of the most sensitive data and should counteract malicious attempts with equal force. Investing in AI that can detect attacks is no longer optional, but a requirement to remain credible in the minds of customers. Algorithms blacklist IPs, alert customers via their preferred contact method and ask for human verification of quarantined actions. Customer loyalty is given in exchange for the peace of mind of knowing your data is only used to improve your experience and to offer you the best deals.

Tech Challenges

To engage AI in building customer loyalty, companies must collect and put to good use impressive amounts of data or make sense of existing data repositories. Many enterprises already have vast and diverse data which remains untouched due to lack of structure and know-how.

Capturing and properly organizing data is the first challenge of a company looking to be more customer-oriented through AI. A subsequent challenge includes using a unitary system to have an overview of data coming from different sources such as invoices, e-mail, social media, CCTV and CRM. The biggest problem remains to turn data into actionable insights, if possible, in real-time.

Loyalty towards companies emerges from similar mechanisms that work in personal relations. Trust, consistent positive experiences, and the same values are the foundation of a long-lasting and fruitful collaboration. AI can play multiple roles, including a personal advisor, brand ambassador, dedicated marketer and data protector, all based on the same set of information.

Here are some suggestions for communicating with customers in a meaningful way.

In this the digital age, when everyone can be connected to everyone (or nearly everyone) almost all the time, I wonder: how connected are we, especially to our customers?

Sure, they can reach us at all hours with all sorts of means, but how in-touch are we with our customers? How many of these contacts are merely follow-ups in an ongoing discussion about a project or topic?

Technology makes it convenient to communicate, but perhaps it has become too convenient.

That is, technology is replacing the human contact that used to allow for a personalized touch. While working for an ad agency years ago, I would regularly e-mail PDFs to clients for proofing. That worked well for both of us. The client, after all, was usually quite busy. Plus, I had better things to do than drive 10 minutes or more merely to drop off a proof.

I often worried, though, about one day becoming so reliant on technology (notably e-mail) that the customer relationship would falter. Think about it. You get into a routine with a customer, using e-mail or other forms of technology to communicate, then one day: Poof! You learn the client has replaced your firm. “But,” you exclaim, “I’ve been there for you all along!” Have you, really?

Spend a few moments today assessing the relationships you have with your customers. Do you provide personal contact on at least an occasional basis? Meeting in person can be difficult for customers hundreds of miles away. But you can still stay in touch in a meaningful way. Some suggestions:

Send greeting cards. Sure, you send out a bunch in December. It’s a nice touch, but what about the other 11 months of the year? You could send out cards around July 4 or Thanksgiving. How about a goofy card right before Halloween? (How about a goofy card any time? Customers love to get a chuckle in the mail)

If you know your customers well, send cards celebrating family milestones like birthdays (even those of pets), anniversaries, graduations, and such. Be creative. Set yourself apart from the typical salesperson. Show that you genuinely are interested in them.

Send links to relevant articles. Do Web searches for relevant articles and blog columns, and send out e-mails with the link(s) embedded. You’re trying to show you care about their businesses, so don’t include a sales pitch. The message need not be long – something like, “Thought you might find this article of interest” – will suffice.

Get away with your client. Treat the person to breakfast or lunch. Take the person to (or offer tickets to) a ballgame, the theater, or some other public event.

Buy from your customers, and refer them whenever you can. Sales is supposed to be a mutually beneficial relationship. It’s not a one-way street. Help your customers prosper whenever you can. Along those lines….

Invite your customers to networking events. Don’t assume they know about the events, either. They may be too busy to follow e-mails and other announcements. Plus, the business may not be a member of the Chamber of Commerce or trade association. Meet your customer at the door, and pick up the entrance fee. As you scan the crowd, think of who would be good partners for your customers, and make the introductions.

It’s important to show that you’re not just a salesperson; that is, an order taker. You’re now becoming more like a business partner. You are genuinely interested in seeing your customers succeed, and it shows through your actions.

About the Author

You may read more of Tom Fuszard’s columns at http://tomfuszard.com and Connect with him via www.twitter.com/tomfuszard.