Chances are your customers probably don’t. And rightfully so. But when you thoughtfully engage in conversations and build a relationship through text and in person, you can certainly get people to love your business.
We’ve talked about tone and texting etiquette, both of which are key when you want to build a relationship through text. To avoid the pitfalls of coming on too strong, let’s dive in deeper to how you should address customers.
Don’t Get Too Cozy Too Soon
Be friendly! Be welcoming! But don’t text your customers as if they’re your best buds, especially if they’re new to buying or working with you.
Some people really want a truly personal relationship with the businesses they patronize. But until you know whether or not your customers are those types of people, err on the side of increased professionalism. You can be personable without being personal.
Let each relationship develop naturally and let your customers take the lead in conversations when it comes to familiarity. Just like with any relationship, it takes time to figure out how familiar you can be with someone.
You do so by regularly staying in touch and paying close attention to how people react to and interact with your messages. As time goes on, you should (hopefully) find yourself having more casual conversations with customers.
Don’t Smother Them
Just like any relationship, when you build a relationship through text you need to be respectful of someone’s space. Whether you’re sending one-off messages or scheduling them well in advance, carefully consider how often you’re reaching out. You don’t want to turn into the nagging business person constantly trying to upsell someone.
Texting people too often could also breach the rules of familiarity. Very few customers, if any, want to hear from you every day, and many probably don’t even want to hear from you every week.
Especially if you schedule texts and create automated campaigns like you can with Skipio, figure out how often someone will hear from you before adding them to a campaign. If you plan to add them to multiple campaigns, it’s even more important.
Getting the balance just right of how often to text people will take some trial and error. Carefully track how many responses or interactions you have. If you increase the number of texts you send and you clearly see engagement decreasing, give them some space.
Meet Their Needs
In other words, pay attention to what your customers actually care about when it comes to your business and then send them messages about those things. You must meet someone’s basic needs before you try helping them with other things.
If you know certain customers aren’t interested in hearing about new products, either because you can tell from their responses or they’ve told you specifically, don’t text them about new products.
This isn’t to say you should never reach out about something different than people are interested in. But if you’ve already established a relationship with someone and therefore met their needs, it will be easier to introduce them to something new and they’ll be more open to it.
When you send thoughtful messages with the right amount of familiarity and not too often, you build trust and loyalty. From there you can help someone understand the value of other products or services you offer.
The best relationships are built on honesty, trust, and open communication. Your business-customer relationships should be the same. So take it slow and be mindful of your customers as you reach out and perfect your business texting strategy.
Before you know it your customers will be celebrating your love and gushing about you to everyone they know.