The key to building great relationships and retaining customers is incredibly simple: Over-the-top customer service!

In order for your customers to love you, you have to love them first. If your customers are not the most important part of your business, you’re missing the only opportunity you really have to explode your business and boost your profits. How you feel about your customers comes through loud and clear at every touch point you have with them.

Be easy to do business with – answer phone calls quickly and politely. In this day and age of technology, a live person answering the phone will quickly set you apart and it shows how you care about your customers’ time.

The same goes for your website. Make it easy to navigate. If you are getting complaints about any aspect of your site’s navigation – listen and fix it!

Another great way to improve retention is to be accessible to your customers. Talk to them in person. Yes, automated responses have their place, but nothing takes the place of a personal conversation – especially when you are building trust and developing relationships with your customers.

This is especially true if your business is strictly Internet based. With the plethora of Internet scams we hear about every day, you want to avoid having your business being lumped into that area. Your accessibility goes a long way to let your customers know you care about them.

Finally, under-promise and over-deliver. Customer satisfaction and ultimately retention is all about meeting expectations. You can really develop over-the-top customer service by exceeding, not just meeting, your customers’ expectations.