User Review
( votes)All successful entrepreneurs are alike, all struggling entrepreneurs have client communication issues.
Nimble has over 140 thousand users worldwide, maintains successful investor relations, and keeps getting awards and recognition from the world’s top software review sites, like Capterra, GetApp, and G2Crowd.
Based on these humble achievements by our expert team, we are delighted to share our in-depth guide on how to manage communication with clients for sustainable business growth.
Why is client communication vital to your business growth?
In the era of digital marketing dominance for B2C sales, the importance of human face-to-face communication has somewhat withered.
The majority of B2B sales are still rooted in the strong sales teams that manage to convert those digital-marketing generated leads into prospects due to a skill-set based on communication excellence.
Boost customer acquisition
If you choose the right tone of voice for your online and offline communication, your brand book has the adroit mission and vision, and your team is armed with well-worded scripts, chances are your stream of new clients is constant.
Convert more clients quicker
The best salespeople convert quicker with less effort. If you know via which channel to approach your leads best, choose the right triggers, mix enough FOMO and introduce a bit of social proof into the formula – you have so many more chances to convert.
Raise your average check
Most businesses have lots of products to sell or at least a premium version of the product to drive average check. Upselling, cross-selling and other measures to grow the average rate can become one of the main sources of income.
Given the most heavy-lifting is done and the client knows what a great and reliable company you are, pushing them one step further is all about trust, smooth communication, and client management.
Nurture client loyalty
A loyal client is your best sales rep.
A loyal client is your most generous client with the highest LTV. This is why establishing professional communication is so vital.
At Nimble we provide tools to nurture those relationships with your clients and turn them into trusting bonds that can be relied upon from both sides.
From the possibility to send group emails that look like one-to-one messages, enriched profiles with social media insights to segmenting your database for granular search, Nimble CRM is just the tool to create, mold, and sustain a family-like bond with clients.
Multiply word-of-mouth referrals
Word-of-mouth is still a thing, specifically in most hard-to-get-into circles. The more affluent your target audience is, the harder it is to get your hands on their contacts.
This is where word-of-mouth promotion is pure platinum.
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Guess what? CRM provides tools to keep those flowing. Read on to find out how.
Moving your client along the conversion funnel: stages of customer communication flow:
Define the target audience & know your market conditions
Even if you sell toothbrushes, you don’t have an addressable market of 7.4 billion people. Because some like it cheap, some like it eco-friendly, some like it electronic. You can have it all in one. Knowing your user person defines all further successes and failures.
These easy steps will help you make the most of your User persona:
- Create at least 3-5 detailed user persona profiles for your product with your sales & marketing team;
- Get a SWOT going that puts your ideal customer in the context of the market;
- Store all these documents in a shared folder on Dropbox or GDrive;
- Attach it to your onboarding pipeline as a task;
- Have your top revenue-making team review it every quarter by creating a recurring event in your CRM.
Research all publicly available info before the first contact with the customer
Research your potential clients before you contact them for the best starting point for your conversation.
Using sales intelligence tools like Nimble Prospector is a not-so-hidden trick used by hundreds of thousands of grateful salespeople who outperform their competitors time after time again. The best thing is that you can enrich your existing profiles with a click of a button, filling out up to 40 fields on a prospect’s profile.
Outreach with an offer
There are no right ways to reach out to your client, but there are so many wrong ones.
When you reach out to the client, make sure your contact is not a nuisance but a lucrative opportunity.
Deliver the benefits of cooperation
Having scripts that reveal just enough info at just the right time is crucial for a B2B company. People don’t have the time and patience to listen to call or read emails anymore. You literally have just 30 seconds to grab attention by the horns.
Ensure that your scripts are saved on a shared file with access to all respective company members and can be easily filtered for the right occasion/industry/product.
Don’t speak about the advantages of the product, but rather highlight the positive change the product can bring to the life of a client.
Make an offer they can’t refuse
Delivering an offer is an art and your sales team should have a clear understanding of the rules of play.
In the sales department repository, any agent should be able to easily find templates for every occasion as well as the maximum / recommended discounts available for specific season/volume, and more.
Give them space
A bit of a cold shower works magic on clients.
Once you have produced your best offer with a bit of FOMO in the form of a time-limited offer, step back and let them feel you have gone out of your way for them.
Sign the deal
Once the deal is signed, your company’s standards may be such that a client is passed to another department or agent. Keep connections with your clients at all times. Tag them as a converted client and make sure to reach it once in a while with the help of your CRM’s kind and timely reminder.
Best practices for client communication
Always consider context
If you research your client enough, you will have known their standing on politics, social standing, family situation, and more. Sales intelligence tools that are social-media savvy can help you dig all the data.
Knowing what brine your client has been marinating in all this time will help you find a perfect pairing for these circumstances.
Be aware of the market, era, and competition set
No client exists outside of the market, they are bombarded by offers in a specific price range, there are seasons with low demand and deep discounts, there is the impact when the supply-demand balance changes.
One of the best practices for near-perfect client communication is to always consider the client as part of the bigger ecosystem like market and era.
Choose the right communication channel
Millennials love Facebook and LinkedIn, Gen x is more about Instagram, while gen Z is passionate about TikTok.
If you choose your communication channels wrong, your chances of striking it with the client are fragile. Stating your omnichannel openness on the first visit is vital, as well as asking your client directly which of the messengers is most convenient for urgent matters: WhatsApp, Messenger, Viber, or other.
Select tone of voice and keep it throughout
When only considering how to start communication with the client, think about the tone of voice, that will work in this particular case: is it informal “Hi”, or is it a somewhat conservative “Dear X”? Is it “best regards”, or is it “CU soon”!
Try to align your tone of communication with your company heritage, values, standing, as well as your customer’s worldviews and values.
Be honest and transparent
One of the sure-fire ways to effectively communicate with clients is to be open with them, treat them as if they are on your team.
Such an approach guarantees you are never lost in lies of half-truths gives authenticity and trust to your rapport and feels genuine.
Choose the right technology
There are many methods of communication with clients and most of them involve technology in 2021. Email, LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, SMS, messenger, telephone – you name it, but pigeons are definitely a thing of the past.
Being omnichannel is the new norm for digital natives and digital immigrants alike. This is why CRM is such an important part of the tech stack.
Nimble acknowledged the significance of social media years ago and built its systems around social media integrations. Now you have every means to contact your contacts in an omnichannel manner from the comfort of your CRM.
Steps to improve client communication with existing database
Try different approaches: aggressive & pushy vs lullabying and argumentative
When we enter any transaction – be it financial, emotional, or other – you have expectations. Similar to new businesses, new relationships may fail in the predetermined form and shape or go astray from the planned version.
This only proves that you are human and clients are not robots too.
Take a deep breath and have the guts to try a different approach. Change pushy for lullabying etc.
Change the negotiator altogether
If you are a business owner, you will have your favorites. Chances are, the best performer on your sales team is going to be that favorite.
But guess what? Clients have favorites too. Sometimes they wouldn’t coincide with your choice.
If you feel one of your sales agents is stuck with an important client, change the negotiator – or even upgrade to you being the account owner personally.
Give before you even start expecting to receive
A path to the client’s unconditional trust is long and curved. Make it a habit and a corporate culture to give plenty before you even start considering to receive.
Provide as many free consultations, estimates, and drawing as needed be without even as much as showing your price. When the price slips into the conversation, the client should have no qualms about you being one team.
Nimble CRM: a perfect tool to build & sustain perfect client communication strategy
Whichever methods of communicating with customers you choose to run your company, Nimble will help get them working for you most efficiently.
These are just some of the advantages of this adroit tool, which helps over 140 thousand manage their work more efficiently:
- Expansive features an intuitive interface
- Contact management
- Email marketing with group email functionality
- Calendar and scheduling
- Task, deal, and pipeline management
- Reporting and analytics
- Social media integration
- Nimble Prospector sales intelligence tool
- Microsoft 365 integration
- Affordable transparent pricing: $25 per user per month if billed monthly, $19 per user per month if billed annually
- Easy integration with 2000+ apps and tools via Zapier, PieSync, API.
- The low learning curve with plenty of YouTube webinars for self-learning
If you are looking to improve client communication in your organization, try Nimble CRM for free for 2 weeks with full access to all these ultra-useful features.
Managing clients with one of the best Client Relationship Management tools is not only mission possible, but mission walk-in-the-park-level-possible.
