People work with businesses and professionals they trust. Building customer trust and loyalty in your embroidery business is an ongoing process. Here are 9 tips for building customer trust and loyalty with both old and new customers.
- Keep your agreements with your customers
If you promise delivery on a particular day, make sure to deliver when it was promised. Even something as small as the time you have scheduled an appointment is an agreement. Each time you break a promise to a customer, you break the trust. - Create realistic customer expectations
Make sure the customer understands exactly what you will do for him or her and what is included in your service and what is not. What will create extra charges? How and when will you be billing the customer? Living up to the expectations you create helps to build trust with your customers. - Help customers to understand the process and strategy for their order
If your customer understands how you and your business works and what the process of their order is, the customer can then know what to expect and when to expect it. Trust comes when the customer feels confident and comfortable with the plan and the strategy. - Never over promise
It is tempting to promise whatever the customer wants to hear without looking at your schedule or asking if it is doable. When you do not deliver on your promise this causes broken agreements and broken trust. - Carefully explain the customer’s role
When a customer is clear on what his or her role is then he or she gets clear on what progress can be made without their involvement. Getting really clear on what the customer needs to do to move his or her order forward, helps you work as a team and builds trust. - Discuss potential problems that can happen
Nothing disturbs the trust of a customer more than when something unexpected happens. Guard against something negative happening as a surprise by discussing the potential pitfalls with the customer. - Review the work order in detail
Any decisions that the customer is going to have to make should be discussed in detail. Relationships and trust are built over a long period of time but it can be broken easily. An unexpected issue that is a surprise to the customer that he or she was not expecting can break that trust quickly. - Avoid making the customer feel stupid
No one likes to feel stupid. If customers feel that you think they are stupid they will no longer entrust you with their ideas or work. Customers who don’t feel valued by you may stop trusting you. No one sets out to make a customer feel stupid, but it could be an attitude, an inadvertent comment, or a look that gives the customer that impression. Be aware of your inner thoughts. They show up without your noticing. Be very careful with your language. - Don’t allow interruptions when you are meeting with a customer.
It gives them the feeling that they are not important to you and you really do not want their business. Everyone needs to feel special no matter how large or small their order is. This can ruin the good will and trust that you had with them.
Building relationships and customer trust with both your customers and prospects helps you to build loyalty. Loyalty is something that is very uncommon in the embroidery business anymore but it is not impossible to get. When your customers feel that they are valued and you give them excellent customer service, they will become loyal!