What’s the secret to forming rock solid relationships with customers? Focusing on customer needs. And this is how you make it happen.

You know that there is nothing quite as important to building rock solid relationships with customer as gathering as much information about their preferences, their activities and their buying behaviors. When we know all there is to know about a potential buyer, we can execute the kind of campaigns that work to convert them into paying customers. But how do we achieve this? How do we make that leap? How do we strengthen our relationships with customers and reap the rewards of long-term commitment? Let’s look at the 4 ways to make it happen.

1. Why engagement matters

In today’s Marketing and Sales landscape, customers need to feel as though they are being engaged – not bombarded with random messages that don’t match their immediate needs. Keeping them engaged means establishing an emotional connection with them, and that means fostering a relationship that is built on a solid understanding of the problems they face. It is only when we understand customer needs that we can form meaningful relationships with them.

Research shows that a customer’s buying decision is largely based on emotional factors. This means that understanding their pain points is essential to their buying journey. Deeply engaging with them means gaining an understanding of their preferences and buying behaviors, and when we can figure that out, we’ve got it made.

2. Cutting through the noise

We are flooded with messages on a daily basis. On average, we are exposed to over 3,000 messages per day. Top performers keep this in mind and make sure they stay away from outdated tactics such as batch and blast emails that are sent to broad database segments. There is nothing like breaking a connection with a customer than doing so.  With today’s information overload, these approaches form a disconnect between brand and customer, and depending on how you approach this means either cutting a relationship short or keeping it moving forward.

3. Listening before responding

Sending out messages to customers is important, but listening to them is even more so. By paying attention to customer behavior and activities it becomes more likely to deliver the right messages at the right time. What content piece did they download? Was it a technical piece or one that spoke about making ROI impact? What part of the presentation on sales call was most interesting to them? What email campaign yielded the best response? Listening to customer behavior opens up a world of opportunities to establishing engaging and meaningful conversations with customers.

4. Building trust

Miscommunication breaks relationships, understanding strengthens them. The more we are willing to understand customer needs, the more connected we become, and the more connected, the more trust we gain. Trust is the foundation of a rock solid relationship and when customers feel that you’re there to really help them, they are more inclined to make a purchase decision. Trust goes a long way in forming a healthy, long-lasting relationship. And we make this possible when we demonstrate that we understand their needs more anyone else.

The better you are able to tap into the pain points of you customers, the greater the chances of you responding to them with the right solution. How effective are you at understanding your customers’ needs?