Successful businesses have figured out how to use their Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system to foster relationships with prospects and clients. Building these meaningful relationships starts with:
- Learning about your clients – professionally and personally through dialogue and on social media
- Adding pertinent data to your CRM
- And, finally, taking action
Here are six ideas for using Act! to add a personal touch to your client interactions and show gratitude to them for their patronage:
Send a “thank you” to clients for new or recurring purchases and referrals. This could be sending a handwritten thank you in the mail or with the goods, or sending a personalized e-mail via your e-marketing system. Make this part of your opportunity sales process, and don’t close the opportunity until its done!
Conduct regular webinars or training sessions at no charge – or invite key clients to one of your “paid” events for free. This is also a nice way to revitalize the relationship with contacts you haven’t heard from in a while. Use groups in Act! to keep track of which contacts you have invited to each event.
Refer a client’s services to someone else. Referring a client really shows how much you admire them and value their relationship with you. You can keep track of referrals in Act! on the “relationship” tab of the Contact Detail screen.
Send personalized holiday emails, cards or gifts. Better yet, invite your key clients to your company holiday party. This is a great way to interact outside of business and get to know a little more about them. Use the ID Status field in Act! to flag your “key” clients so that you can quickly and easily create a lookup and send information to them.
Send a birthday card or email – or wish them a happy birthday via social media. Use the Act! birthday field to hold this information. This builds a dynamic group to find upcoming birthdays – you don’t need to enter their “actual” birthday (unless your business needs require that) in order to use this field. Just use the current year.
Pick up the phone or schedule a lunch or dinner meeting just to catch up. The more you interact with your clients, the more they will remember you.You might create a recurring task to remind yourself to set up a meeting with them every x number of months.
Having the correct information in your database is the first step toward managing your relationships with your customers. Adding that personal touch can differentiate you from the competition and create a loyal client base.
Thank you for taking the time to read this article. We appreciate it and hope these suggestions allow you to be more successful. If you need help implementing any of the ideas above, please feel free to email us at