In our work we have a lot of different kinds of relationships. No, we’re not promiscuous, we love our partners and would not dream of being unfaithful. I’m talking about relationships with our clients, the relationships with the visitors to our website and the relationships with our clients’ visitors. Every time we get a new client we need to build relationships with them and their visitors. That’s a whole lot of relationships, I can tell you that.
Luckily, the way of dealing with the clients, our visitors and their visitors can be very similar. In this post I want to look at what makes a good (on-line) relationship.
When we have a lead for a website or other project we, basically, do the following:
Get to know the lead and find out what he/she wants: when a lead needs something he usually has a (rough) idea of what he wants. We talk to him and see if the idea needs more fine-tuning, we see if it is something we can do for him or, if not, we try to recommend someone else for the job. If it is something we can do, we move to the next step.
The goal of this exercise is to show that we think with a client, instead of for a client, and to build trust. If it is something we can’t do for the lead, we might make him a client later on when he does need something we can do for him.
Write a game plan and quote it: the next step is to actually put the results of the previous conversation on paper and show the lead what you can do for him and how much it will cost.
The reason for this step is two-fold. A) the client needs to know what he’s buying and B) you need to have it clear what you need to deliver for which amount of money, i.e. define the product/service. This step makes sure you avoid a lot of confusion and irritation in the future.
Start delivering the goods: the client has bought something so you need to deliver. This seems the easiest step because everything is set down, it is clear what needs to be done and why, and now it’s just a question of doing the job. Regretfully though, this is where everything can go sour (and it does with many companies, and yes, this has happened to us as well). This can depend on a lot of factors; a faulty game plan, bad communication, slow communication (this is the Caribbean), differing preconceptions, etcetera. Eventually though, the project needs to be finished.
Why this step is important does not need to be explained, right?
Give the proper aftercare: after the project is finished we are never done with it. Most of the times the client also needs maintenance or he needs one of our other services. This is also the reason why we always do our best to make the client happy; a happy client is a client for life.
A client that is happy with the eventual product will come back for more, but he will also tell other people about your services. Especially here on Curacao this is very important because it is such a small island.
We feel that the above also applies to the relationship between a website and its visitors, except for step number 2 of course.
When a visitor finds your website through a search engine or a referral you need to know who this person is. You need to have at least a basic grasp of why people come to your website for the first time and you need to capture them in that instant. It is too easy for them to click away and go to your competitor’s website.
So, you need to know your target group, show those people that you can be trusted (as an authority) using the design of your website, but also by not forcing them into anything. This is step number 1.
As going through a website does not cost anything but time you do not need to quote anything unless you want the visitor to sign up for something (a newsletter, a members section, etc). Step number 2.
The visitor needs to find ‘the goods’ he’s looking for and it needs to be what he’s looking for. Step number 3.
If the contents of your website were any good the visitor will come back, tell his friends about your website and create links on his own website. And that’s step number 4.
So, to summarize: make people happy by delivering a good product and they will drive money and traffic to you. You can figure out for yourself how this would translate to your personal relationships but in my humble opinion they work almost the same way, pheromones aside of course.
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