One of the first questions Helen Vollmer asks a new client is how much time he or she has to devote to the relationship.
“You shouldn’t go into a relationship without first realizing that it is going to take time, it is going to take commitment, and that commitment needs to be from both directions,” says Vollmer, founder and CEO of Vollmer Public Relations Inc.
To build strong customer relationships, you have to effectively communicate, she says. That means using an open and honest dialogue and encouraging your customers to be just as open with you. You must discuss tough issues with clients and develop the relationship further than work-related conversation.
Those ideas helped Vollmer grow her business to $9.8 million in revenue in 2008. Since starting the public relations firm in 1981, Vollmer has expanded the company to four offices and the client list to names like Travelocity.
Smart Business spoke with Vollmer about how to build and maintain customer relationships through communication.
Form an open dialogue upfront. First of all, you have to realize that as a counselor you are there to not just say, ‘OK, that’s what you want to do, that’s just fine.’ Really how you build relationships with them are to just have open conversations, open dialogue.
I think that’s really critical that from the get-go when you first get a client and you sit down with them and say, ‘OK, lets talk about managing expectations, lets talk about what’s realistic based on your budget, based on your services, based on our staffing, based on what we want to accomplish, and lets figure that out together.’
Bring up the hard questions when needed. Ask things that may not always be comfortable, but that push them a bit. Maybe you have recommended a certain strategy and, all of a sudden, you realize it’s not working, then you need to call them and say, ‘You know, this isn’t working; we need to do something else.’
There are times in any client relationship where it could be as simple as there is no chemistry between the person working on your account and you. Another tough issue right now is no one really knows what the economy is going to bring. Instead of just kind of hiding and sticking our head in the sand, I think we need to keep saying, ‘You know, we don’t know. We’re going to do this, and then let’s see what happens.’
And that’s just fine.
Oftentimes you have to be the one to bring things up. There are times where you go, ‘God, I just don’t want to have this conversation.’ But when you don’t have the hard conversations, those issues just get bigger and bigger until sometimes they can’t be fixed.
Call them and say, ‘Hey, we need to talk, or we haven’t heard from you in awhile, it’s pretty quiet, what’s going on.’ Or you see something that you go, ‘We need to fix something.’
I would really honestly say, don’t do that via e-mail. Those things need to be done in person or at least get started on the telephone and you can move to a face-to-face meeting.
