This week’s Big Marketing Minute touches on something that every small business owner should understand clearly: there’s a big difference between a customer and a client.
Now, look, if you are a retail store and you have customers, you know that some customers provide repeat business and some are just one-time shoppers. Those repeat customers can become your core business and the people you count on to spread the word about your company as time goes on.
When you’re in the service business like we are at Big Voice Social, there’s a big difference between a customer and a client. We typically refer to everyone as a client. We go in with the attitude that no relationship is a quick relationship and that we are partnering with with the people on our client teams.
Client relationships are a two-way street. Like any quality relationship, they require nurturing, communication, an investment of time and feedback. We meet regularly with our clients and this is included in the fees we charge to make sure that time is covered. While clients are looking to outsource the day-to-day implementation of managing their social and creating content, it’s important to know that the only way for us to properly be their voice is with good, solid communication.
We focus a lot on collaboration. It’s a key component of partnering with our clients. What we never want to happen is that we get to the end of a contract period for a client to tell us they aren’t happy with something we’ve been doing. There are multiple check-ins through the year (a minimum of monthly face-to-face) and just no reason not to give us a heads up if we are going in a direction that doesn’t work for you.
When we sign a client we anticipate that we are going to work together for years and years. We have a couple clients we’ve worked for a decade. Those are the relationships we strive for each and every time we sign a new client.
If you are looking to outsource, this is a reminder that what we do is collaborative and is based on partnership and clear communication. We need to count on each other for that!
Watch for news coming your way soon out of our little agency. We’ve got a giveaway launching to get you ready for the new year – and something tells me if you are a small business owner you won’t want to miss it!
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