How Entrepreneurs Can Systematize Relationship-Building


Consumers today won’t do business with just anyone. They want to deal with brands that view them as unique individuals, not as sources of revenue awaiting harvest.

To break through an increasingly crowded consumer space, companies must form meaningful relationships with the people in their target audiences. Nurturing one relationship is hard enough, but brands are responsible for thousands of relationships at once. Companies need scalable systems to create meaningful, long-lasting engagement with their biggest fans.

Follow these tips to systematize your customer relationships and take personalization to the next level:

  1. Adopt workflow automation.

Humans connect best with other humans, but employees bogged down with busywork can’t provide a great customer experience. Use workflow automation tools to help teams automate daily frustrations so they can spend more time on tasks that demand a human touch.

Workflow automation software helps teams communicate with relevance and speed. Prospects don’t respond to generic emails, but they do respond to emails that arrive at convenient times with pertinent information. Using workflow automation tools, companies can select from a library of templates, adjust the content, and schedule emails to arrive at the perfect moment.

Emails are just one example. Smart workflow tools can also help businesses automate scheduling, streamline presentations, optimize check-ins and follow-ups, and capture customer feedback. To achieve personalization at scale, you must start by empowering internal teams.

  1. Add artificial employees to your workforce.

While robots won’t take over complex jobs for a few more decades, AI tools already make life easier for companies and customers alike. Add these tools to your marketing arsenal to let consumers further relationships with your brand on their terms.

Chatbots, for instance, help you provide stronger customer service without hiring more staff. Smart programs can look at historical communication logs to see what customers have done before, then use that information to provide more contextual assistance. The best tools allow businesses to customize responses and bot personalities, enabling the brand’s industry knowledge to always shine through.

Other AI-powered options include social media monitoring services, transcription bots, and automated personal assistants. For every source of friction or frustration, businesses can turn to advanced tools to make life a little easier. As your company grows, you can lean on AI to facilitate growth without losing the personal touches that inspired your original success.

  1. Integrate your CRM.

Every business with prospects and customers needs a CRM to manage those relationships. Spreadsheets and emails hide information in silos, but by pooling that data in a central repository, companies can keep communication consistent and limit the need for customers to repeat themselves.

Many CRM systems only offer basic functionalities out of the box. Fortunately, free and premium plugins can transform even simple tools into powerful weapons of customization. By adding lead scoring capabilities, website supplementation, email integrations, and even human resources functions, businesses can lean heavily on CRM software to build closer relationships with customers and prospects.

Salesforce and Microsoft Dynamics can be powerful relationship engines, but they aren’t the only CRM players on the market. HubSpot offers a free functional tool for businesses just getting off the ground. Bigger companies need beefier solutions, but with a little research, even basic software can lay the foundation for thousands of serious relationships.

  1. Follow and facilitate the customer journey.

Customers travel long and winding roads before they begin their relationships with brands. After the first contact, those twisty roads branch off into a variety of side paths. Your brand must maintain a presence across a variety of channels to keep consumers interested — and maintain a consistent voice along the way.

Today’s omnichannel customer journey takes travelers through channels including mobile, social media, traditional advertising, customer service (both AI and human), and direct communication. When brands try to be everything to everyone, customers see through the façade and take their money to more honest businesses. You can’t build relationships by pleasing the masses. Instead, you should define your brand’s beliefs and stand by those beliefs on every platform, even when you face opposition.

Your company’s personality doesn’t necessarily need to be combative. You can stay out of the messier parts of politics if you want — even if young consumers prefer brands that take a political stance. Regardless of what you choose, keep it consistent across marketing channels and internal operations alike. If consumers see your nature-loving campaign and discover your production process wreaks environmental havoc, they’ll mark you as a hypocrite and move on.

Relationships between consumers and brands are more complicated than ever. Thanks to increased transparency and constant access, consumers know when brands speak untruthfully. Technological leaders have set high standards for personalized interactions, which means even small companies must keep up with the times or lose customers to more customized competitors. You can overcome the odds and develop strong customer relationships at scale, but to get it right, you’ll need the right weapons in your arsenal — and the right strategy to use them.
