Customer Relationship Basics: the 5 essentials

You have already asked yourself the questions: How do I get the customer to confirm their event with me? How can I be sure that the customer is satisfied with their event? How do I get the customer to be an ambassador and promote my event location or my event service?

You all know the famous saying: “a happy customer will talk to 3 people, an unhappy customer will talk to 12!”. It's scary when you look at it that way, but there's no reason for it to go wrong if you do everything you can to listen, understand, and help the customer.

And to do your best, in this article we have put together the 5 essentials of customer relationships to help you become an expert. And rest assured that you will quickly see the difference!

It starts off strong

Generally, it all starts with a customer contacting you to get information about your location and what you can offer them. You should know that a customer who contacts you is because he has found your place attractive: top decoration, super beautiful photos of your cocktails on Instagram or even your very satisfactory comments...

When the customer contacts you, their expectations are at their peak! He is impatient but full of doubts. It is a key moment in your relationship. The first impression you give to the customer will be decisive for the future.

So what should you absolutely pay attention to?

1. Customer care must be very fast. Ideally within hours of receiving the request (4 hours).
2. You should adopt a welcoming demeanor. You are smiling (yes even on the phone) and convey to the customer your joy of taking care of them.
3. You need to convey a reassuring professional image. For example by explaining the next steps to the customer. For example: “I will now ask you a few questions to better understand your expectations, after which I will send you a proposal by email.”
   

PS: If you don't have time to take care of a customer properly (that happens), tell them and suggest an appointment when you are more available.

Open your ears wide

Now let's go a little further in this care. To understand your customer you must first listen to them... Surely this seems like an obvious remark to you and, in addition, you certainly have the impression that you are just listening to your customers.

But are you sure you listened to your customer WELL? Not out of ill will, but sometimes due to lack of time, by instinct, by experience,... For example: You are used to organizing dozens of study days every week in your seminar location. You are receiving a new request for this format. Wouldn't you tend to go a bit quick when making contact with the customer? Because you master this format like the back of your hand. However, you may be missing out on key information to make your customer happy.

To improve your listening skills, the good news is that you can put in place procedures that will give you the guarantee that you have done your best:

• The telephone or video appointment:

When receiving a new request by email or via a form, call the customer or offer a video call. Reassuring and friendly, face-to-face contact will allow you to have a deeper conversation than in writing.

• The qualification questionnaire:

For the customer to give you information, you still need to ask the right questions and stimulate dialogue. Yes, but sometimes in the heat of the moment, you don't know what to say or you forget things.

The qualification questionnaire allows you to do this: animate your conversation while asking the right questions that you will have thought about and gather the elements you will need to satisfy the customer.

In this article, we explain how to create a qualification and give you access to templates.

And whether during the request, during the organization of the event, the day of the event or even after the event, listening to your customers is essential at all stages. You will thus develop a relationship of trust over the long term.

CRM, your precious treasure

In order not to lose or forget anything about the information given to you by the customer, you need to store it. For this, digital tools are ideal and will save you a lot of time and paper!

What is a CRM?

CRM (Customer Relationship Management) means customer relationship management in French. A CRM tool (software) aims to help you manage your future customers and current customers by allowing you to store data, to facilitate the monitoring of relationships with your customers and to save you time to spend more with your real customers.

• The database

Let's start with data storage. You have 3 families of information to keep: customer information, event information and possibly information about the company to which the customer belongs. Having an event CRM software like BookingShake with all the data allows you to find them quickly and easily and optimize the updating of the data. And don't forget that all the data will also be useful for future commercial actions.

[To go further: to find out how to build your customer database, see our article here, and to know how to best use it discover our article here.]

• Customer relationship monitoring

Procedures with precise steps, for example, reminding the customer, appointments, confirming items,... will allow you to have a perfect follow-up of your customer. He will feel that you are taking care of him, but will also feel your great professionalism. There, generally, you have won almost everything. The customer confirms with you, he trusts you with his eyes closed and if he is happy on the day, he will come back and talk about you around him. Again in this case, BookingShake is a valuable working tool to set up your follow-up.

[To go further: To find out how to create your procedures effectively, go to This article.]

• The saving of time

Qualifying a customer, showing them to visit your establishment, taking the time to answer their numerous questions, advising them, this takes an enormous amount of time and this time is extremely important. You shouldn't have to ignore it. It is thanks to this time that the customer will come and come back to you but also thanks to this time that you build the reputation of your brand. Save time thanks to an event CRM like BookingShake, which automates numerous administrative or internal management actions.

Now that you've taken great care of your customer, listened to them carefully, and stored the information carefully, you've already earned valuable points.

Experience and customer relationships = winning duo

Customer experience is the concept we've been hearing a lot about lately, but how can we actually do it? Already the customer experience is hidden everywhere and above all it arrives well before the day of the event. Sometimes we think that the customer experience in events is only on the day. While your care and your listening are part of the customer experience, for example.

The customer experience is the time to unleash your creative madness to impress your future and current customers. Here are some ways to boost your inspiration:

• Online experience

Take care of the image of your company on your site and your social networks (LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest,...). The customer must feel your personality and that of your brand through their screen. Videos, photos, texts, illustrations,... All these elements will be your online window and will already create an emotion for the customer.

For example: The web site by Reeve Paris, The Instagram page Of The Orchestra or The LinkedIn page by Pépite Paris.

• Selling with style

Have sales materials that make you want: beautiful but also easily understandable for the customer. Make it easy for him to show his event in your place. Do you have plans of your spaces? Do you explain what equipment is available? Are your formulas designed by person?

[To go further: To make beautiful designs yourself for free, discover our tutorial here.]

• The visit

Show me around your reception area, your production laboratory, your production laboratory, your bar, your bar, your restaurant, your hotel,... and plan small things to drink and snack on that will highlight the quality of your business. Take for example on the Chef Guillaume Mundt.

• The little attentions

Imagine small touches to impress your customer. Sometimes a small thing is all it takes to make a difference. For example, why not send a small postcard after visiting your event space to your customer to thank them. Or give him a chocolate bar made by your chocolate partner and explain to him what you can offer with this partner for his event,...

In short, use all possible supports to make the customer feel really special but also to feel the universe of your brand.

It's not a one-night stand

Even if the time of the event is limited to a highlight. A satisfied customer becomes an active ambassador for your brand.

And you know how much most people love to give feedback. How many times did an employee or a friend recommend a restaurant, a bar, a place for your team building or even for your birthday? Every day, we give, we advise, we recommend, we influence.

Your goal is therefore not only to transform the customer's request into an event in your meeting room but to transform the customer into an ambassador.

The energy you put into your relationship with the customer before and during the event will be the starting point for the transformation of the customer into an ambassador.

It is now important to also take care of the customer after the event by sending a satisfaction call, a short thank-you video or sending the recipe for madeleines served during the break they enjoyed so much.

And then comes the fact of keeping in touch. Make sure he has you in mind to either come back or recommend you. To do this you can:

• Suggest that the customer follow you on social networks.
• Set up a Newsletter.
• Organize open house events and invite your customers.
• Implement commercial actions for loyal customers (maybe a discount or even gifts)
• Organize lives with experts on topics that interest your target audience.
• Invite customers to come and test a new offer or a new product.
  

As you will have understood, maintaining customer relationships is a daily task of reflection, but it will certainly make you the favorite of your customers and will perpetuate your leading position on the market!