As impersonal as they may be, emails remain a great way to keep in touch with your clients. I particularly like email for one specific reason and that is to let know clients that I am ALWAYS working for them! I’m going to provide you with two of my favorite strategies. Before I do that, I must stress that you must be responsive, and proactive, with your email communications to start with! For those of you who are too busy to return emails, don’t even think about asking me to buy from you … ever! Couldn’t help myself. Pet peeve 🙂
Away we go …
Clients like to be included in correspondence that relates to them – This is particularly effective when you are working to resolve an issue that will involve soliciting the assistance other parties and especially when said parties are in your organization. Certainly, it can just as easily apply to things like project coordination, seeking bids from third parties, the list goes on and on. The premise is that, when I tell a customer that I am going to work on something for them, I want them to see how hard I am working it. It goes like this …
- First explain to the customer what you are going to do and provide them with realistic expectations as to when they can expect results. Then, exceed those expectations.
- Tell them who you will be communicating with, why, and about what. Ask them if they would like to be copied on these communications. I have never had a customer say “No”.
- Every time you send an email or reply to one regarding this project, you copy the customer. You don’t BCC them, you CC them!
- Your email correspondence remains transparent. You want the customer to see if you are kicking someone’s ass in an effort to get them the results they deserve.
I like this method on a whole variety of levels! And, trust me, it works!!
- It shows the customer how hard I am working for them.
- It shows them that there is an organization behind you that is there to assist them.
- Because everybody can see who you are copying (the customer) and they know that now the customer knows … who they are … you will be amazed at the overall responsiveness that you can expect from others!
Send emails to clients early in the morning, late at night, and on weekends and holidays – I am a very strong believer that salespeople need to be available at most times (not all) and if you are a commissioned salesperson, remove the “not all”. My customers have always loved the fact that I will return emails and take calls at pretty much any time and any day that I have access to these tools. I also love to send emails at off-hours and off-days. Why? Because, once again, it shows them that I am always thinking about and working for them! Better yet, you can even write these emails during the day (if you wish) and then use tools like Boomerang to schedule to go out later in terms of hours or days. What’s not to love about that!
