Clienting – how to successfully manage customer relationships lesson 1

Clienting, to put it in a short and snappy way, is an idea of ​​creating profitable and long-lasting business relationships. It’s true that the philosophy of this business model is a lengthy topic of the river, but it is well reflected by the slogan: think like your customers, do not sell, but make them buy.

To start from the very beginning I want to lay some ground: trust is the foundation of a business. Everyone knows that, in fact, in the practice of business activities, few people understand and apply that rule. Let's think of a wise answer to what it trust in business and why it is an excellent remedy for many business problems. It is usually assumed that it takes time to build  trust. Nothing more wrong. Confidence is emotional. It is a product of emotional beliefs and judgments. And as such it can appear in us, towards someone or something literally after just few moments. All you need is just few well selected and profiled elements for a specific group of people. It's a matter of vocabulary, appearance, clothes, accessories, context of time and place. Also the experience itself is crucial and here part of it plays Perfect Gym management system and how we work with it. If someone/ something fits well in our beliefs, our views, our value system, if he/she reads our needs and expectations well and satisfy them, he/she will achieve the goal - we will trust such a person or a place/ thing. And this will not happen after a year or two, but almost immediately, it will inspire our confidence so much that we will become connected with him/her–this is how emotional the nature of trust works.

At this point, it is worth clarifying and dispelling one myth that often misleads and is doing a lot of harm in a good business conduct. Trust is not a synonym of credibility. These two concepts, although quite close and often used interchangeably in reality relate to other areas determining our attitudes, behaviours, and actions.

So if trust is not rather a matter of time, what is its essence? It is emotionality. Trust can be raised, so you have to know how to do it. This is a huge challenge for the fitness club manager or owner, but you can succeed. The starting point should be the answer to the question – whose trust do we want to win? Seem obvious that by different means we will create confidence in a student, mature corporate manager, and another in a thirty-year-old businesswoman. The sum of all these factors that help to build trust in our customers is called met determinants and we should clearly focus our work and attention on them.

A separate issue, though strategic in a sense, is also the decision whether the club should be trusted as a place, its interior and equipment, offer, possibilities, or a person, trainer, manager, entrepreneur running a business. This is a crucial selection implying many future opportunities, but also threats. It is easier and better to build trust in a person, it is more effective, but carries one, significant threat. A man goes out from the club and trust goes with him.

According to the latest research checking whom or what customers of b2c services trust, their confidence spread evenly on 3 main areas:

I trust in general service/ customer service/ overall company quality – 37%

I have faith in leading expert/ trainer – 31%

I trust in other people’s comments – 32%

 

Each of these areas requires specific strategies and resources, and it is impossible to act wisely on all three with equal commitment and effectiveness. You simply have to choose.

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