In today’s global economy, helping your customers network builds their loyalty to you and your company and keeps you winning their business again and again.
Exchange information with your customer
There are always opportunities for you to become your customer’s “partner” in many of their endeavors. Just keep an eye out for how you can help them get where they want to go, not only in terms of business but also personally, spiritually and intellectually. For example, let’s say you sold your customer a container load of hammers. Later, you read in the International Daily Herald about a company that makes colorful textured plastic sleeves that slip onto the handle of a hammer, allowing the home carpenter to get a better grip while pounding away. You call your customer to tell him about it, and email him a copy of the article. Your customer is impressed because you appear to be one step ahead of him. He will be pleased to see that you are keeping him, and the growth of his business, in mind.
Offer your customers fast-breaking news, ideas and useful contacts that will help their business, even if they don’t have anything to do with yours. If you provide them with grocery foods but they are trying to source non-food grocery items, point them to a good supplier you know. The more you do for your customers, the more valuable you become to them, and the more secure foundation you will have built.
Offer your customers fast-breaking news, ideas and useful contacts that will help their business, even if they don’t have anything to do with yours .
You can find appropriate and professional ways to contribute to your customer’s personal interests as well. If your hammer customer mentions an interest in aerodynamically designed boats during a business dinner, you might advise him of a trade show soon to be held in your city — the largest and most important show in the boat industry — that he won’t want to miss.
If you can’t fulfill a need for your customer immediately, be willing to extend yourself a little. For example, if your customer asks you a question about a subject you don’t know a lot about, do a little research. Prove that you’re not only a good supplier, but a valuable all-around business associate.
You have to lead before your customers can follow. You have to act before they can react. Global marketers are leaders who act. Help your customers find their way, and they’ll stay with you.
Arrange introductions for your customer
Arranging an introduction to an important business contact is a gesture that demonstrates the utmost respect and appreciation in the global marketplace. Such an introduction can be one of the most valuable services you can offer your customers. Remember the time and trouble it took you to build the solid foundation you have right now with your customer? What would it have been worth to you to have a mutual associate smooth the way? Give your customer this benefit — and strengthen your ties further — by making a few key introductions.
This service holds particular value in Japan, where business is conducted primarily through an official introducer, called a shokainin. A shokainin not only introduces but also vouches for the integrity of the individual they are introducing. If you make an attempt to call on a customer in Japan on your own without the assistance of a shokainin , he or she may agree to see you as a courtesy gesture, but business may not develop as a result of this meeting. Cold-calling for business may earn you a reputation as a bold and energetic salesperson in America, but this practice is viewed as offensively aggressive in Japan. If you want to do business in Japan, know the culture.
Even in countries that don’t run on such a tight network of relationships, an introduction can still open doors for your customer. During your communications, be alert for ways in which a person or company you know might help your customer increase his growth and profitability or enhance his position in the marketplace. Then, introduce them. Once you have undertaken this responsibility, you must monitor the situation to make sure all goes well. If it does, you get credit, and deservedly so. If it doesn’t, you must investigate why things went amiss and intervene to resolve or remedy any hard feelings. Your role as the introducer is an important one. If completed diplomatically and successfully, it gains you the utmost respect in the global network.
Build interdependency with your customer
You have served your customers, satisfied them, gone beyond their expectations, and helped them to grow. But have you built a bond with them that encourages them to look to you when there is a problem, or when they need an experienced internationalist’s advice? In other words, have you built sufficient interdependency between yourself and your customer? This may seem hard to grasp, especially from an American’s perspective. We are encouraged to conduct our business lives with an all-capable, self-sufficient, every-man-for-himself attitude. That was fine for the driven, boom-and-bust entrepreneur of the 1980′s. But for the global marketer laying the groundwork for the 21st century by building a worldwide network of close connections, after-sales service should be geared toward fostering a healthy give-and-take, a healthy interdependence with your customer. Knowing that you have a friendly associate out there pulling for you is comforting and adds to your confidence in everything you do.
Support your customer’s success in any way you can, and you will be building a constructive interdependency that can become your gateway to the world.
WEALTH Editorial Note: The author’s advice provided in this article works well not just for global customers, but also for those in your own backyard.
Going the Extra Mile Keeps Global Customers Coming Back, Part One
Going the Extra Mile Keeps Global Customers Coming Back, Part Two
Copyright ©2008 Laurel J. Delaney. All rights reserved.
Laurel Delaney runs GlobeTrade.com, a Chicago-based firm that specializes in international entrepreneurship. She is also the creator of The Global Small Business Blog (http://borderbuster.blogspot.com) and Women Entrepreneurs GROW Global (http://www.womenentrepreneursgrowglobal.org).
Tags: global marketing, interdependency, introductions, networking