If you’re trying to build a relationship with your customers, you might be starting off on the wrong foot.
That’s the takeaway from a new Corporate Executive Board study, which found that the vast majority of consumers (77%) had no interest in developing a “relationship” with the businesses they patronized.
Most people view relationships as being reserved for friends and loved ones. (“It’s just a brand, not a member of my family” was how many of those surveyed described their feelings.)
Customers don’t want a relationship with your business. All they want is for the products they purchase to work as promised, as expected. All they want is for your front-line staff to do what they said they were going to do. All they want is for your company to make their lives easier, not harder.
The irony is, if you deliver all those things consistently, customers will love you for it – because they rarely get that from most firms. Though they may still claim to not have a “relationship” with your company, they will be drawn to do business with you again and again.
And the value of that loyalty is something any business can relate to.