Your work doesn’t end when the deal closes.
You’ve worked hard to guide your prospects through the buying cycle, and they have finally made a purchase. You’ve handed them off to customer service or support, and you’re done, right?
The truth is, you’re never done nurturing a positive relationship with your customers. Your customers are too valuable a source of referrals, future opportunities and insights. In addition to cultivating your leads, make sure to cultivate your post-sale customer relationships.
Customer Nurturing vs. Lead Nurturing
Nurturing a customer relationship is not the same as nurturing a lead. Lead nurturing entails delivering the right content or information at the right time to an individual who has expressed some level of interest in your company’s products or services through a website, trade show or other channel. Based on pages visited, information requested or other behaviors, a profile of the lead is developed. Using that profile as a guide, the lead is engaged and re-engaged via specific communications until a purchase is made.
One of the key differences between customer nurturing and lead nurturing is that your customer is not a profile. Your customer is a person with the potential to keep buying from you and to influence others to buy from you. The value of the relationship you share is determined not by the timing and content of an email, but by the quality of your engagement with each other.
Tips for Customer Nurturing
Clarify the post-sale transition // Who is the customer’s post-sale contact in your company? If a support or service representative is assigned as the contact, ask him or her to participate in a transition call to introduce them to your customer. Stay in touch with both the rep and your customer in the initial post-sale weeks to ensure a smooth transition. Regardless of whether you assign a specific support or service representative, a support group in general or continue to provide support yourself, make certain the transition from prospect to customer sets
the tone for a positive ongoing relationship.
Keep asking questions // Sales reps are understandably eager to move on to the next prospect, and it frequently shows in the content of their follow-up with new customers. Don’t send that predictable email that begins, “I just wanted to follow up with you …” Set a brief call time and request permission to ask a few questions. Then develop one or two thoughtful questions, such as “How would you describe the first few weeks of using our product or service?”
Customer nurturing is more about asking questions than providing information. As your customers become more familiar with your products and services, and as you demonstrate a sincere interest in what they think, their insights become more valuable to your sales process. So do their referrals.
Send unexpected appreciation // The handwritten note is still one of the most effective ways to surprise and delight a customer.
Personalized appreciation is even more notable when it is unexpected. Try sending your customer a thank-you note when they are 90 days or more into their purchase, and then find other unexpected times to write an occasional note of appreciation.
Remember, it’s not just a sale. It’s a customer.
