As a business, our ability to survive and prosper is dependent on how we grow and protect our customer base. It’s a known fact that it can take months to secure a customer, but customers can be lost in an instant. Having a perspective that once a customer has used your service, they will keep coming back, is a false and dangerous narrative. Complacency with your customer base can be catastrophic to customer retention. How to retain customers is not rocket science and should be simple. The key fundamental is trust – if customers trust you, you are likely to retain them.

Here are 5 tips towards building a relationship with your customers and garnering their trust.

1.  Treat customers the way you would like to be treated. This may seem like a basic statement, but it is the one that is often forgotten.
2.  Staying professional is an important factor in building relationships with customers. Professionalism builds respect and trust.
3.  Being honest about the product or service you provide. Once again its about trust. Honesty and forthrightness with your customers will foster trust.
4. Stay educated about your customers. Understand them, who they are, what they do and what is important to them.
5. Stay educated about your products and services. Your customers rely on you to be the expert in your products and services. As times and things change, stay up to date with the changes so that you can always remain the subject matter expert in your field.