Communicating with a Customer

In any job the most important person is your customer. The person who is going to use your product or service is the person with whom you need to most thoroughly and effectively communicate. Good communication with customers often overlaps with high-yield marketing, as the same strategies cause one to result in the other.

There are many ways and opportunities you have to communicate with a current or potential customer. Following are some common avenues of communication, and the pro’s and con’s of each. Customer preference is key, so asking which way they would most like to be contacted is highly recommended.

EMAIL

Pros:

• You can type faster than you can talk and really think through what you’re saying before sending it.
• It’s convenient
• Creates a written record of conversations with clients.

Cons:

• Customer may not check their email.
• Customer might misunderstand a question and not be able to answer the information you need.
• Can sometimes lack that important personal touch.

PHONE

Pros:

• Restores the human contact that email does not have.
• Aids communication by clarifications that might be misunderstood in emails.

Cons:

• Possibility of not being able to reach customer
• Be a potential time waste

FAX

Pros:

• May be too busy to sit at a computer and open document after document.
• Provides a quick hard copy that they can take with them.

Cons:

• Fax may not be turned on, which means they wont receive it right away.
• Line may be busy and fax won’t go through.
• If fax is a public machine, confidential information may be at risk.

There's an old saying: "People don't care how much you know until they know how much you care." Let your customers know that you care about communicating with them - their way. Asking not only adds another level of customer service, but can be the difference between a one-time customer and a long-term client.