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Be a Friend to Your Customers

Guest post by: Tom Borg

Article Overview: By being a friend to your customers you can build your business. Learn how one business owner practices this basic rule of success to attract more customers and help make his business more profitable.

Be a Friend to Your Customers

One of the biggest advantages a small business person has is his ability to be a friend to his customers, to help them in a personable way to solve their problems. By setting the example for your staff or co-employees to follow, you are creating an opportunity for them to do a better job of serving customers.

Theodore Levitt, one of the national experts on customer service, says that “our customers want to have a business relationship with the people they buy from.” Our customers want to feel special. They want to know that they are not just another number or some vague entity. Being in a small business, you have a golden opportunity to distinguish your company from the rest of the competition by being a friend.

There is a man from my hometown who is the owner of a baseball card shop. When customers enter his store, he makes them feel comfortable by his easy manner. He is a good people person. He realizes that people don’t want to be badgered into buying anything. By joking and exchanging stories with them about their favorite sports celebrity, he devel­ops a friendly relationship with all the adults and children who come into the store. He has made it a favorite stopping place for many children to bring their parents to browse and buy.

There are other baseball card shops in the area, but his is the busiest. How does he do it? Simple. He makes it a point to be a friend to his customers.

What are some of the things you, your staff and co-workers can do in your small business to be a friend to your customers? Hold a brain­storming session and make a list of seven ideas. Circle the top three ideas and take steps for implementing them this week.

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Article Tags: be a friend, build your business, business owner, customer service, friend
Referred by: http://www.salestrailblazer.com



Related Forum Posts
Re: Two Useful Books To Help You Focus On The CLIENT - Hi David, To add to your thread, I'd like to recommend Jonathan Tisch's "Chocolates On The Pillow Aren't Enough: Reinventing The Customer Experience". Tisch's book includes content on "Welcoming Customers", "The New Art of Customization", "The Challenges of Customer Diversity" and "Offering Something Extra to Your Customers" to name a few.
How to Do Great Marketing with (Amost) No Money - I've given this presentation to CEOs many times. Now i can share it with you. But I cannot because I do not yet have 20 posts. Jeff Ogden, President Find New Customers
Re: Are Business Owners too Old School to be Sold by a blog - [quote:140e27hj]Customers Pick Static Documents over Blog Entries 8 to 1 on Average[/quote:140e27hj] Interesting study. Just as a commenter said on your post... don't call it a blog. I agree.
Re: pitching - Friendliness is closely related to the concept of "permission marketing" as articulated by Seth Godin. The subtitle of his book says it all: "Permission Marketing: Turning Strangers into Friends and Friends into Customers." The old method was "interruption marketing" where you suddenly get an ad in your face whether you want it or not...
20% increase - One of my businesses uses a system to help business owners manage customer relationships and encourage more referrals. I'm finding that this economy is making business owners take a second look at their business and it's assets (aka customers) to see how they can leverage them. Make those Customers (one-time sale) into Clients (repeat sales). I'm finding them more open to having this discussion with me and the results are speaking for itself. Everyone I've worked with so far has seen at least a 20% increase in sales or referrals within 4-6 months all done by managing an existing relationship.


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