Why Building Relationships is Important in the Digital Age

In the past, business was done face to face. This meant that relationships were a must between clients and service providers. Nowadays, it is possible to build a business and provide the necessary services without necessarily getting chummy with your clients.

Therefore, it is not surprising that there is a huge gap in client relationship management — even though everyone talks about CRM — that often leaves the client feeling neglected. Is it any wonder that so many people would prefer to work with small organizations more than larger corporations?

Well, the reality is that your business’s long lasting success solely depends on building satisfying business relationships with your employees, clients, and partners. And why is that?

Good Working Environments Encourage Productivity

To have this, there must be a good relationship between management and employees. A cohesive workplace is largely born of good working relationships.

Some amount of discourse or even politics is to be expected but overall, the feeling that an employee belongs to a team eventually makes them go above and beyond to deliver excellent results.

Luckily, there are many tools that can help with improving productivity among team members while limiting friction. For instance, task management tools like Scoro Software can help make collaboration, project monitoring, and delegation easier and more effective.

Customers Have become Entitled

No, we don’t mean that in the wrong way. What we mean is that customers are used to getting excellent personalized services. It’s the reason many clients leave growing or rapidly expanding firms for smaller, more local service providers.

We’re all for rapid expansion and growth. But in the process of growing, do the smart thing by staying in touch with your current clients — it’s easy to get carried away by all the new business you’re getting.

Know this one thing: it is still possible for a rapidly expanding company to provide the community-minded feel that many people have come to like and expect if the organization commits to that.

Your Relationships Will Keep Your Customers

Do you know how innovative companies evolve? In many cases, they do it by simply listening to their customers and understanding their wants and needs.

In case you didn’t know, it costs at least five times as much to get new customers as it does to take care of your current ones. As far as we’re concerned, this alone is enough reason to build lasting relationships with your clients. It’s simple economics.

In fact, business owners and operators who make it a point to build strong relationships with their clients are likely to drive more sales, revenue and profits in this digital age. In spite of all the data gathering and analysis, personalized services are becoming rarer and sometimes the goal of the technology available to help manage these relationships is lost during the process of adopting it.

It Is Smart

Now more than ever, business is becoming impersonal.

Think about it: when was the last time your firm called or emailed its clients and customers asking them what they think you can do to provide better services?

How many times have you contacted your clients just to show some gratitude for bringing their business to you? Many organizations only contact their client base when they have more offers and products to sell.

While many people may not necessarily mind that, imagine what would happen if you were to make constant, client-centered communication a part of your business. Imagine what it would be like to just get in touch to ask them what problems they’re having with your service and how you can be better.

So, spend more time and devote some company resources to building and nurturing your business relationships. Use the benefits of the digital age to drive closer customer relationships and strategic partnerships. This is worth more than a simple advertising campaign and really, it forms the foundation of your success.